Library / English Dictionary

MAMMOTH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of numerous extinct elephants widely distributed in the Pleistocene; extremely large with hairy coats and long upcurved tusks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("mammoth" is a kind of...):

elephant (five-toed pachyderm)

Meronyms (parts of "mammoth"):

proboscis; trunk (a long flexible snout as of an elephant)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mammoth"):

Mammuthus primigenius; northern mammoth; woolly mammoth (very hairy mammoth common in colder portions of the northern hemisphere)

columbian mammoth; Mammuthus columbi (a variety of mammoth)

Archidiskidon imperator; imperial elephant; imperial mammoth (largest known mammoth; of America)

Holonyms ("mammoth" is a member of...):

genus Mammuthus; Mammuthus (extinct genus: mammoths)

Derivation:

mammoth (so exceedingly large or extensive as to suggest a giant or mammoth)

 II. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

So exceedingly large or extensive as to suggest a giant or mammoth

Example:

a mammoth multinational corporation

Synonyms:

gigantic; mammoth

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

big; large (above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent)

Derivation:

mammoth (any of numerous extinct elephants widely distributed in the Pleistocene; extremely large with hairy coats and long upcurved tusks)

Credits

 Context examples: 

“With only two specimens to look at, these mathematical models were important to show that the differences between the two mammoths are too extreme to be explained by other factors,” Rogers said.

(Genetic ‘Mutational Meltdown’ Doomed Woolly Mammoths, VOA)

The latter was from a group of about 300 mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.

(Genetic ‘Mutational Meltdown’ Doomed Woolly Mammoths, VOA)

But the woolly mammoth existed until about 3,700 years ago when they finally went extinct.

(Genetic ‘Mutational Meltdown’ Doomed Woolly Mammoths, VOA)

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, say they compared genetic material from mammoths when they were plentiful and material from when the population was in decline.

(Genetic ‘Mutational Meltdown’ Doomed Woolly Mammoths, VOA)

According to researchers, woolly mammoths were once very common in North America, Siberia and Beringia, which is the land bridge that used to exist between current day Russia and the U.S. state of Alaska.

(Genetic ‘Mutational Meltdown’ Doomed Woolly Mammoths, VOA)