mammoth

Everyday

1. A mammoth was a huge, hairy animal like an elephant with long curved tusks that lived long ago and died out. tree →
2. (adjective) Mammoth means very, very big, like a mammoth task or a mammoth meal. tree →

In the lessons

In science and history lessons it is an extinct animal of the Ice Age, known from bones, tusks and frozen bodies found in the ground. In everyday talk it means enormous: a mammoth job, a mammoth effort, a mammoth queue. It tells the reader something is surprisingly large or takes a lot of work.

Examples

• The woolly mammoth had thick brown fur to keep it warm. tree →
• Scientists found a mammoth tusk in the frozen ground. tree →
• Mammoths lived during the Ice Age and are now extinct. tree →
• Cleaning my room was a mammoth job. tree →
• We ate a mammoth plate of chips after the match. tree →
• The museum has a full mammoth skeleton. tree →
• There was a mammoth queue outside the toy shop. tree →
• Early people hunted mammoths for meat and fur. tree →

Note

Countable noun: one mammoth, two mammoths; «a mammoth». As an adjective it goes before a noun (a mammoth task) and has no -er/-est forms. Mammoths are not the same as elephants, though they were close relatives; they are extinct, so there are none alive today. Myth: dinosaurs and mammoths did not live at the same time.