ELEPHANT

noun (plural ~s; also ~) Usage: often attributive Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French olifant, elefant, from L. ~us, from Greek ~-, elephas Date: 14th century any of a family (Elephantidae, the ~ family) of thickset usually extremely large nearly hairless herbivorous mammals that have a snout elongated into a muscular trunk and two incisors in the upper jaw developed especially in the male into large ivory tusks and that include two living forms and various extinct relatives: as, a tall large-eared mammal ( Loxodonta africana ) of tropical Africa, a relatively small-eared mammal ( Elephas maximus ) of forests of southeastern Asia, an animal or fossil related to the ~s, one that is uncommonly large or hard to manage