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elephant

Pronunciation: /ˈɛlɪfənt/

The English word “elephant” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A large mammal of the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea, having a trunk, and native to Africa and Asia.
  2. Anything huge and ponderous.
  3. Synonym of elephant paper.
  4. used when counting to add length, so that each count takes about one second
  5. Ivory.
  6. A xiangqi piece that is moved two points diagonally, may not jump over intervening pieces and may not cross the river.

Etymology

From Middle English elefant, elefaunt, from Old French elefant, elefan, olifant, re-latinized in Middle French as elephant, from Latin elephantus, from Ancient Greek ἐλέφᾱς (eléphās) (gen. ἐλέφαντος (eléphantos)). Believed to be derived from an Afroasiatic form such as Proto-Berber *eḷu (“elephant”) (compare Tamahaq êlu, Tamasheq alu) or Egyptian ꜣbw (“elephant; ivory”). More at ivory. Replaced…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.