pachyderm
Americannoun
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any of the thick-skinned, nonruminant ungulates, as elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses.
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an elephant.
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a person who is not sensitive to criticism, ridicule, etc.; a thick-skinned person.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pachyderm
First recorded in 1825–30; from French pachyderme, from New Latin Pachyderma, singular of Pachydermata (plural) obsolete order name, from Greek pachý(s) “thick” + -dérmata, neuter plural of -dermatos “-skinned,” adjective derivative of dermat-, stem of dérma “skin”; see origin at derma 1
Explanation
A pachyderm is a really big animal with really thick skin, like an elephant or a hippo. If you break this word down to its parts, you see pachy which means thick and derm which means skin. It comes from the Greek, but was first used to describe a class of animals by a French naturalist in 1797. He believed that thick skinned animals all belonged to the same family and categorized them together. We now know to classify them according to different features, but the word remains both in use and descriptively useful.
Vocabulary lists containing pachyderm
Body Language: Derm ("Skin")
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Fish in a Tree
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On the Origin of Species
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Naturalist Stephen Boyes believes massive elephants live undetected on a remote plateau in Angola; they’d be descendants of a giant pachyderm hunted and killed 70 years ago that now resides in the Smithsonian.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 24, 2026
The pachyderm, fondly known as Craig, died of natural causes on Saturday morning at Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya, conservationists confirmed.
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2026
The pachyderm is expected to return to Sri Lanka after treatment, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has said, and animal welfare activists hope he will be sent to a sanctuary.
From Reuters ● Jun. 21, 2023
The pachyderm rituals would not have seemed out of place at a human funeral: Some stood in quiet order while observing Tolstoy's remains, and others gently touched his body with their trunks.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2023
The prisoners heard it ap- Eroach, shaking the pavement with its weight like an invinci- le pachyderm.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
