mammoth

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a large extinct elephant-like mammal of the genus Mammuthus, often with long curved tusks and a hairy coat

   A woolly mammoth skeleton dominates the museum's Ice Age gallery.

2. 2
   adj

   extremely large, extensive, or difficult

   The archive faced a mammoth task when it began digitizing a century of records.

Borrowed from obsolete Russian mamant, now mamont, probably from a Uralic source such as Proto-Mansi *mān-oŋt ("earth horn"), referring to tusks found underground. English developed the adjective "enormous" from the animal's size; the sense was popularized in the early nineteenth century by the celebrated Mammoth Cheese presented to Thomas Jefferson.

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