(n.) An extinct, hairy, maned elephant (Elephas primigenius), of enormous size, remains of which are found in the northern parts of both continents. The last of the race, in Europe, were coeval with prehistoric man.
(a.) Resembling the mammoth in size; very large; gigantic; as, a mammoth ox.
Example Sentences:
(1) In overturning the fine, the court today found that the commission had long "practiced restraint" in exercising its authority to sanction broadcasters for indecent content, and that the mammoth fine was an improper departure from that.
(2) Photograph: Alamy The Devils Postpile, near Mammoth Lakes on the east side of Yosemite, looks as if it might have been created by some satanic sculptor, but really it's just one of the world's best examples of columnar basalt, a similar geological feature to the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland.
(3) Two mammoth C17 military transport aircraft were on the tarmac, one of which landed in front of us, the other unloading jeeps and armoured vehicles.
(4) The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said only that he was under investigation, but the website of the People's Daily, the official party newspaper, drew links to Ji's oversight of mammoth infrastructure projects in the city and his connections to a detained construction tycoon.
(5) Although EU member states will provide more than half the staff, debt-ridden Athens faces a mammoth task in getting 1,500 staff in place at a time when public sector recruitment is frozen.
(6) Looking beyond the liberation ceremony, the NTC faces a mammoth task.
(7) Another mammoth playoff effort by Houston and it is they who will face the winners of New York Red Bulls vs DC United in the Eastern Conference final.
(8) 3.49am BST Rangers 2-2 Kings, 4:45, 3rd period Yet another turnover by Giradi and big Jeff Carter is skating in front of the net - he unleashes a mammoth shot that's high and wide!
(9) DNA was isolated from tissue samples of several mammoth specimens, radiocarbon dated between 10,000 and 53,000 years old.
(10) Deep inside these caves, however, their minds moved to different matters and artists concentrated instead on the more majestic animals – mammoths and woolly rhinos – that then populated the Dordogne.
(11) The humanitarian system: 'A mammoth machinery losing track of what it is for' Read more Now we must turn these commitments into action.
(12) Other artefacts from the site include an exquisitely carved mammoth ivory spearhead.
(13) Former schemes were tiny but this one is mammoth, the debt kept cunningly off the public borrowing books (which the Office for National Statistics allowed; it's said the Treasury was amazed).
(14) After the biggest debt write-down in the history of world finance and two EU-IMF-sponsored bailouts worth a mammoth €240bn (£190bn), Greece is still far from being saved and, worse, is slipping inexorably into social meltdown with its political arena ever more radicalised.
(15) Even now, there is a sense that it could go either way, that we might pass this mammoth test or flunk it.
(16) To do so would be a mammoth task: 300 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute, which would require more than 50,000 full-time staff doing nothing but watching videos for eight hours a day.
(17) The new system was devised under Labour, but campaigners blame this government for rolling it out nationwide last year, beginning the mammoth task of retesting all 1.6 million incapacity benefit claimants, at a rate of 11,000 a week, before the system was ready.
(18) Other economic data from China has underscored the country’s mammoth task of rebalancing the economy away from reliance on its vast manufacturing sector and exports to a more diverse mix.
(19) Mancini has a clause in his £35m, five-year contract that following his removal ensures he will not receive a mammoth payoff from City akin to that which José Mourinho can expect if removed by Real Madrid as their coach.
(20) It would then launch a rights issue at €0.05 a share, well below the current price of €0.30, to give bondholders a cash top-up payment, while repaying some of its mammoth bank debts with the €200m proceeds of its continuing disposals programme.
Pleistocene
Definition:
(a.) Of or pertaining to the epoch, or the deposits, following the Tertiary, and immediately preceding man.
(n.) The Pleistocene epoch, or deposits.
Example Sentences:
(1) Amino acid analyses have been made of the insoluble protein, soluble peptide, and free amino acid fractions isolated from a series of fossil pecten shells of ages from the Pleistocene through the Jurassic.
(2) Genetic data on present human population relationships and data from the Pleistocene fossil hominid record are used to compare two contrasting models for the origin of modern humans.
(3) The present study on 47 naturally fractured enamel surfaces of premolar and molar teeth of Plio-Pleistocene East African hominids measured enamel thickness, slope of incremental lines (striae of Retzius), and the morphology of Hunter Schreger bands (HSBs).
(4) The subocclusal morphology of 168 permanent mandibular premolars (N = 77) and molars (N = 91) of Plio-Pleistocene hominids has been investigated.
(5) The morphological comparison shows strong affinities to comparative material from the Upper Pleistocene like Cro-Magnon.
(6) The cultural associations in the earlier late Pleistocene are with the Middle Stone Age.
(7) The latest fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, when our predecessors first walked out of Africa.
(8) The diets of these Plio-Pleistocene hominids appear to have been qualitatively dissimilar.
(9) The concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide is now higher than at any time since the dawn of humans 2.6m years ago, an event itself marked by a new geological epoch called the Pleistocene.
(10) The morphology of the nasal bones and their articulations with the adjoining frontal and maxillary bones have recently been reported in Nature and elsewhere to be diagnostic of hominoid taxa, and cladistic analysis based on these features has been used to assign two immature Plio-Pleistocene hominoids (AL 333-105 and Taung) to different lineages (Paranthropus and Homo, respectively).
(11) Pilbeam and Gould have discussed African Plio-Pleistocene hominid evolution in the context of allometry (size-dependent morphological change).
(12) The antiquity of the lesion is demonstrated by its appearance among late Pleistocene human remains.
(13) glabrata (Say, 1818) from upper Pleistocene (or Holocene) based on paleontologic and stratigraphic data and in agreement with shell morphology.
(14) The dwarfing of large mammals on islands occurred repeatedly in the Pleistocene.
(15) The coefficient of variation of ECV that characterizes a group composed of all Plio-Pleistocene gracile hominids does not support a single polytypic species interpretation of this assemblage.
(16) Extinctions occurred throughout the European Pleistocene, but until the late Pleistocene most losses were replaced by the evolution or immigration of new species, and most of those lost without replacement were small mammals.
(17) Fragmented mandibles of two Pleistocene lions (Panthera leo atrox) recovered from Yukon Territory possessed acquired pathological changes and congenital abnormalities, judging from the anatomy of contemporary and modern lions.
(18) Associated fore- and hindlimb parts of five individuals are known from the hominid Plio-Pleistocene fossil collections in Africa.
(19) The ancient Pleistocene call of the moon, of salt in the blood, and genetic encoding buried deep in the chromosomes back there beneath the layers of culture – and counterculture – are making successful businesswomen, professionals and even the mothers of grown children stop and reconsider.” The metaphor of the biological clock sounded less florid than the metaphors that followed, but it evinced the same determinism.
(20) The former model infers multiple regional archaic-modern connections and the ancient establishment of regional characteristics, whereas the latter model implies only an African archaic-all modern relationship, with recent (late Pleistocene) development of regionality.