mammoth (mamoth)

and a. [= F. mam mouth = Sp. mamut, mammath = G. mammuth, but it was thickly covered with a shaggy coat of three kinds, long stiff bristles and long flexible hairs being mixed with a kind of wool. This warm covering enabled it to endure the rigor of winter in its native regions. The tusks were of great size and much curved. An entire mammoth wa was discovered in 1799 by a Tung us i an fisherman named Schumachoff, embedded in the ice on the banks of the river Lena in Siberia, in such complete preservation that its flesh was eaten by dogs, wolves, and bears. It was about 9 feet high and 16 feet long, with tusks 9 feet long measured along the curve. In later years the bones in Siberia, and the fo il ivory has been of great commer and tusks of the mammoth have been found abundantly cial value. This article had been known for many centuries before the discovery of the animal itself, and the mammoth is now supposed to have ranged, before, during, and after the glacial epoch, over the greater part of the north hemisphere. That it was contemporary with historic man is shown by the discovery of a drawing of the animal scratched on a piece of its own ivory found in a cave in France. This species is more expre ly known as the hairy mammoth. The name mammoth is extended to other fo il elephants of the same genus or of the subfamily Elephantine, but is not applicable to the mastodons, of the subfamily Mastodont inæ. II. a. Of great comparative size, like a mammoth; gigantic; colo al; immense: as, a mam moth ox; the mammoth tree of California ( Se quoia gigantea ) . A mammoth race, invincible in might, Rapine and ma acre their grim delight, Peril their element. Montgomery , Poems (ed. 1810), p. 46. Mammoth tree, Sequoia gigantea , of California, the largest of coniferous trees. See big tree , under big . mammothreptt (mam'ō-thrept), n . [ μάμμα , a grandmother (see mama), + θρεπτός , verbal adj. of τρέφειν , nourish, bring up.] A child brought up by its grandmother; hence, a spoiled child; a delicate nursling. [Rare.] And for we are the Mammothrepts of Sinne, Cro e vs with Christ to weane our joys therein. Davies , Holy Roode, p. 15. ( Davies .) O, you are a mere mammothrept in judgment. B. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, iv. 1. mammula (mam'ū-lä), n.; pl. mammulæ (-lē). [NL., the silk is emitted. a mammonist. When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, Is it peace or war? better war! Tennyson, Maud, i. 12. If he will desert his own cla , if he will try to become a sham gentleman, a parasite, and, if he can, a Mammon ite , the world will compliment him on his noble desire to "rise in life." Kingsley, Alton Locke, v.