Mastodon Definition

măstə-dŏn
mastodons
noun
mastodons
Any of an extinct family (Mastodontidae) of proboscidean mammals larger than the elephants and having a different structure of the molars.
Webster's New World

A nickname for both the 4-8-0 and (though incorrectly) the 4-10-0 train configurations.

Wiktionary
Synonyms:

Other Word Forms of Mastodon

Noun

Singular:
mastodon
Plural:
mastodons

Origin of Mastodon

  • First attested 1813, from the New Latin genus name Mastodon (1806), coined by Georges Cuvier, from Ancient Greek μαστός (mastos, “breast") + ὀδούς (odous, “tooth"), from the similarity of the mammilloid projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.

    From Wiktionary

  • New Latin Mastodōn genus name Greek mastos breast, nipple Greek odōn tooth (from the nipple-shaped protrusions on the crowns of its molars) dent- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Mastodon Sentence Examples

  • Specialized species like Mastodon americanus have completely lost the rudimentary premolars.

  • Occasionally the American eight-coupled type has a bogie instead of a single leading axle (4-8-0), and is then termed a " Twelve-wheeler," or " Mastodon."

  • The tubercles which cluster over the surface of the crown of the common pig are elongated and drawn out into the columns of the wart-hog, as the low transverse ridges of the mastodon's tooth become the leaf-like plates of the elephant's molar.

  • The valley between Incisa and Arezzo contains accumulations of fossil bones of the deer, elephant, rhinoceros, mastodon, hippopotamus, bear, tiger, &c.

  • Heavy clays, gravel and sands, containing cypress stumps, driftwood and mastodon bones, are characteristic. The loess or bluff formation lies along the bluffs bordering the Bottom, nearly continuously through the state.

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Words Starting With

MMAMAS

Words Ending With

NONDON

Unscrambles

mastodon

Words Starting With M and Ending With N

Starts With M & Ends With NStarts With MA & Ends With NStarts With M & Ends With ON

Word Length

8 Letter Words8 Letter Words Starting With M8 Letter Words Ending With N