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

The megatherium is absolutely as well proportioned, with the view of adaptation of parts to purposes, as the horse or the swan; but by no means so handsome as either.

From Modern Painters Volume II (of V) by John Ruskin

Three species of mastodon and the gigantic megatherium were the only extinct mammalia known from South America previous to Darwin’s voyage.

From Life of Charles Darwin by G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

Then the priest of the megatherium approaches the second shape, and slowly removing the veil from it exclaims to the people: "Behold and adore!"

From Tales From J?kai by M?r J?kai

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

From Salon ● Mar. 22, 2023

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 Francis W. (Francis Whiting) Halsey

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

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

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

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 Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace

And one year I had the whole blooming faculty out here on a fossil expedition; but, by Heaven, McCloud, some of them looked more like megatheriums than what they dug up did.”

From Whispering Smith by N. C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth

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

From Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 by Sir Francis Darwin

"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

"Why, for my part, on the contrary, I should have taken special care to preserve megatheriums and pterodactyles, and all the antediluvian species of which we are unfortunately deprived by his neglect."

From In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant by Jules Verne

Lastly, in the gardens are to be seen life-size reproductions of antediluvian monsters, megatheriums, dinotheriums, and others.

From Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 1 Great Britain and Ireland, part 1 by Francis W. (Francis Whiting) Halsey