Noun: mastodon
| Singular | mastodon |
| Plural | mastodons |
Sample Sentences
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When, exactly, Europeans first stumbled upon the bones of an American mastodon is unclear. An isolated molar unearthed in a field in upstate New York was sent off to London in 1705; it was labeled the “tooth of a Giant”. [2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, chapter 2, in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Henry Holt and Company:]
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The battery is dying, and Natalia's iPhone charger doesn't fit my mastodon of a phone anyway. [2017, Nina Laurin, Girl Last Seen:]
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Nor does it work for governance: the policy has become such a mastodon that we can't adapt it quickly enough to different regions or different circumstances. [2020, Finn Laursen, The Development of the EU as a Sea-Policy Actor:]
Nouns inflected like mastodon
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
First attested 1813, from translingual Mastodon (1806), coined by French naturalist Georges Cuvier, from masto- (“breast”) + -odon (“tooth”), due to the mammilloid (“nipple-shaped”) projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.
Verbs referencing "mastodon"
Polish Nouns
mastodont.