Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Pachyderm
/ˈpækɪdɜːrm/noun
A large thick-skinned mammal such as an elephant, rhinoceros or hippopotamus.
The Greek roots
παχύς
pachýs
thick
δέρμα
dérma
skin
Literally: “thick skin”
The story of the word
Cuvier gathered elephants, rhinos, hippos, tapirs and pigs into an order he named Pachydermata in 1797, on the strength of their hide. The grouping was wrong. Elephants turned out to sit nowhere near pigs on the mammal tree, the order was dismantled, and the word now has no taxonomic standing at all, surviving as a genteel word for elephant and a metaphor for anyone who cannot be insulted.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1830s
Same family
dermatologyepidermistaxidermyhypodermic
In a sentence
The zoo's pachyderm house was demolished and not replaced.
Politics rewards the pachyderm and eats the thin-skinned.