Mahout
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An elephant trainer, keeper, and driver. South-Asia
"The Serrievvan hath the overſight of the Camels, and the Mahout, that of the Elephants."
- 2 the driver and keeper of an elephant wordnet
- 1 To drive (an elephant or elephants). transitive
"Word was passed down the river, the call going out for the bravest of Brul mahouting only the strongest of mounts."
- 2 To drive elephants. intransitive
"First a team of six ponied pulling a miniature fire engine jumping with midget firefighters, then a dozen scantily mahouted elephants painted pink, came out of the arc light and sawdut into neon glow and mirroring asphalt."
Example
More examples"The pachyderms took part in the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament. Fifty-one of the competitors were teenage females. Each weighed about three tons. They carried a player, who gives directions, and a mahout, who helps to guide the animal. The owners of the elephants lent them to corporations which finance the teams."
Etymology
PIE word *méǵh₂s The noun is borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi महौत (mahaut)/Urdu مَہَوت (mahaut)), महाउत (mahāut), variants of महावत (mahāvat)/مَہاوَت (mahāvat), from Sanskrit महामात्र (mahāmātra, “elephant keeper; high official; king’s minister”), from महा (mahā, “great”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s (“big, great”)) + मात्र (mātra, “measure; quantity”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- (“to measure”)). The verb is derived from the noun.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.