megatherium

American  

[meg-uh-theer-ee-uhm] / ˌmɛg əˈθɪər i əm /

noun

megatheriums, plural megatheria plural

1. any of the genus Megatherium of extinct giant ground sloths of the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras.

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megatherium Scientific  

/ mĕg′ə-thîr′ē-əm /

megatheriums plural

1. A large, extinct ground sloth of the genus Megatherium that lived from the Miocene through the Pleistocene Epochs, primarily in South America. It was as large as an elephant, had long curved claws and teeth only in the sides of its jaws, and ate plants. The megatherium was more closely related to the modern two-toed sloth than to the three-toed sloth.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• megatheria
  plural
• megatheriums
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

megatherium megatheria megatheriums

Professor Oliver Farrington, also of the Field Museum, found fossilized bones of a fantastic toadlike creature, probably the extinct megatherium, in the state of Bahia, Brazil.

From Time Magazine Archive

The skull belonged to a megatherium, a mammoth version of a sloth.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Gravigrade, grav′i-grād, adj. walking heavily.—n. an animal like the megatherium, &c.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various

At any rate, with this example before us, we need not wonder overmuch at the ability of megatherium and mylodon to hold their own in the presence of the sabretooth.

From A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open by Roosevelt, Theodore

At this moment Mawg, running a few paces in advance by reason of his superior speed and stamina, passed the spot where the wounded megatherium lay hidden.

From In the Morning of Time by Roberts, Charles George Douglas, Sir

Little could he imagine our own era's "wasteful megatheria."

From Salon ● Mar. 22, 2023

All over the town manufactories and public buildings of colossal size stand, like megatheria, knee-deep in a jungle of houses.

From Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 by Various

I, who had just come from Professor Sedgwick's Cambridge Museum of megatheria and mastodons, was ready to maintain that some cleverer elephants or mylodonta had borne off and laid these rocks one on another.

From Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2 Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2 by Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting)

Surely they were the weirdest, most destructive and wasteful megatheria in the whole history of mechanical invention.

From The War in the Air by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)

The enquirer who undertakes the study of it will sometimes be scarcely less surprised than would be the naturalist who should unexpectedly stumble upon antediluvian megatheria grazing tranquilly in the same field with prize Southdowns.

From Russia by Wallace, Donald Mackenzie, Sir

Also barbacued mastodons and megatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, and tails cock-billed.

From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Melville, Herman

They came in on the Overland, and I find that the professor has made the long journey on the strength of what I once told him about the megatheriums and things.

From The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush by Lynde, Francis

I feel inclined to cry 'a fig for your big oysters, and your bigger megatheriums.'

From Darwin and Modern Science by Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)

I expect to be served," murmured the journalist in him, "by beautiful tame megatheriums, in sashes.

From Romance Island by Gale, Zona

"If a thousand megatheriums were let loose upon the world, in twenty-four hours they would all be in museums."

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876 by Various