Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Proboscidean
/ˌprəʊbɒˈsɪdiən/noun
Any member of the mammal order that includes elephants, mammoths and mastodons.
The Greek roots
πρό
pró
in front, forward
βόσκειν
bóskein
to feed, graze
Literally: “means of feeding in front”
The story of the word
προβοσκίς was the Greeks' plain descriptive word for an elephant's trunk, an instrument for grazing out front. The order Proboscidea takes its name from that single feature, which is also the only one every member shares. The verb βόσκειν also underlies botany, through βοτάνη, the fodder that grows in a pasture.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
proboscisbucolicbotany
In a sentence
Only three proboscidean species survive, all of them elephants.
The museum's proboscidean gallery ends with a mammoth skeleton from the North Sea.