Elephantid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mammal belonging to the family that includes elephants, characterized by large size, trunk, and tusks
2. An animal classified within the group containing elephants, noted for its thick legs and long trunk
3. A large, herbivorous creature from the elephantid family, recognized by its distinctive trunk and tusks

Etymology: "Elephantid" is a technical coinage rather than a word with an ancient pedigree. It is built from "elephant" plus the suffix "-id", which zoologists use to mark members of a biological family, so an elephantid is any member of the family Elephantidae. The suffix comes from the Greek "-idēs", meaning "son of" or "descendant of", and it was adopted into scientific Latin naming to label family-level groups. The base word "elephant" reaches English through Old French "olifant" and Latin "elephantus", from Greek "elephas", whose original sense was ivory before it came to name the animal. The family name itself is a modern scientific creation, formed on the same pattern as "felid" or "canid" for the cat and dog families. Its usage is confined to zoology and palaeontology, where it covers living elephants and their extinct relatives such as mammoths and mastodons.

Synonyms: elephant