mastodon

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mastodon

a relative of the elephant that existed in MIOCENE and PLIOCENE times. It was, in fact, elephant-like and had a short trunk and long tusks.

Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed. © W. G. Hale, V. A. Saunders, J. P. Margham 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

Another example can be found in the world of letters, in which scholars deny absolutely the validity of authorial intent or historical context properly understood, the objective being to exalt this ambitious theory or that, a practice that illuminates nothing beyond the mastodonic self-esteem of the critic at the direct expense of the creative intelligence.

Modernity's "Mr. Rambler": Tobias Wolff's exploration of vanity and self-deception in The Night in Question

Ironically, in a postcard received by Agnes Bedford in April 1921, Pound had declared 'Circe' to be 'enormous - megaloscrumptious - mastodonic': Pound would not renew his correspondence with Joyce until 1923.

A note on the paradisiacal era

THE CASE OF AUTOMOBILES Here is an industry that is, and has long been, dominated by a triopoly of firms of mastodonic proportions.