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Mastodon

//ˈmæs.tə.dɒn// name, noun

Definitions

Proper Noun

1
A decentralized microblogging platform, part of the Fediverse.
"However, the underlying design of platforms within [The Free Network] such as Mastodon, Diaspora and others ... opens the door to security and harassment problems."

Noun

1
Extinct elephant-like mammal of the genus †Mammut that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differs from elephants and mammoths in the form of the molar teeth.
"When, exactly, Europeans first stumbled upon the bones of an American mastodon is unclear. An isolated molar unearthed in a field in upstate New York was sent off to London in 1705; it was labeled the “tooth of a Giant”."
2
A nickname for both the 4-8-0 and (though erroneously) the 4-10-0 train configurations.
3
extinct elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differ from mammoths in the form of the molar teeth wordnet
4
Anything awkwardly large or unwieldy. figuratively
"The battery is dying, and Natalia's iPhone charger doesn't fit my mastodon of a phone anyway."

Etymology

Etymology 1

First attested 1813, from translingual Mastodon (1806), coined by French naturalist Georges Cuvier, from masto- (“breast”) + -odon (“tooth”), due to the mammilloid (“nipple-shaped”) projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.

Etymology 2

See mastodon.

Etymology 3

See mastodon.

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