• mastodon •
Pronunciation: mæs-tê-dahn • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: A large, extinct, hairless elephant-like mammal of the family Mammutidae whose molars have nipple-like protrusions.
Notes: Mastodons are often confused with the hairy mammoths. The two are not only distinguished by the long hair of the mammoth, but the shape of their molar teeth. The mammoth had flat molars while the molars of the mastodon had raised nipple-like cusps. An interesting comparison may be found here. The adjective is mastodonic "like a mastodon, mammoth, huge".
In Play: Opportunities to use the noun are rare: "They dug up some mastodon bones in my neighbor's backyard." While we hear mammoth used figuratively more than mastodonic, this adjective is still around: "The oil supply tanks across the street from Harry's are mastodonic."
Word History: Today's Good Word was first published as a genus name by C. S. Rafinesque in Specchio delle Scienze (1814, 2, 182). Rafinesque borrowed it from Latin and where it was made up from the Greek words masto(s) "breast" + odon- "tooth". Mastos was created from the verb madaein "to be moist, wet", itself a daughter of PIE mad- "wet; fat, well-fed", also underlying Sanskrit masya "fish", Latin madere "to be wet, moist", Albanian mazë "cream", Scotts Gaelic maistir "urine", and German mästen "to fatten". Greek odoys, odontis "tooth", seems to come from PIE de(n)t-/do(n)t- "tooth", also behind Sanskrit danta, Latin dens, dentis, Lithuanian dantis, German Zahn, Old English toð, today tooth, all meaning "tooth". (Today's fascinating Good Word was suggested by GW editor Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira long ago and resurrected by GW editor Jeremy Busch recently.)
