Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Mastodon
/ˈmæstədɒn/noun
A large extinct relative of the elephant, with straight tusks and bumpy molars.
The Greek roots
μαστός
mastós
breast, nipple
ὀδούς
odoús
tooth
Literally: “nipple tooth”
The story of the word
Cuvier looked at the animal's molars, saw rows of rounded bumps, and called them breast-shaped. The name then spread from the teeth to the whole creature, so a several-tonne cousin of the elephant walks around under a word meaning nipple-tooth. The same μαστός sits inside mastectomy and mastitis.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
Same family
mastectomymastitismastoidodontology
In a sentence
The mastodon skeleton in the hall was hauled out of a peat bog in Ohio.