mammothn.adj.

Etymology: < Russian †mamant (1578 in mamantova kost′ mammoth's bone ; now mamont ), probably < Old Vogul *mēmoŋt earth-horn: compare Vogul mā earth (e.g. in mā-xar ‘earth-stag’, a name for the mammoth) and ou̯tə horn. The absence of -n- from the second syllable, shared by the current forms of the word in most Western European languages, is unexplained (a Russian form mam(m)ut is recorded only in 19th-cent. Russian dictionaries). The spelling with -th (apparently always reflected in the pronunciation) appears to have been transmitted to English by translations from Dutch and German sources (compare quots. 1706 and 1736 at sense A. 1a); but additional influence < behemoth n. (at one time commonly believed to have denoted the elephant), implied by the folk etymology reported in quot. 1736 at sense A. 1a, is possible. Compare French mammouth (1705; also mammon (1765), mammont (1800); 1894 in sense ‘very large’), German Mammut (18th cent.; also †Mammon ), Dutch mammoet (1692 as †mammout , 1704 as mammuth in the passage translated in quot. 1706 at sense A. 1a).17th-cent. English forms of the Russian word probably represent the possessive adjective, since this is the earliest attested form in Russian: maimanto in quot. 1618 at sense A. 1a may be an attempt to form a nominative from the possessive adjective mamantov , while mammotovoi kost in H. W. Ludolf Gram. Russ. (1696) 92 (see quot. 1698 at sense A. 1a) is an ungrammatical rendering of Russian mamantova kost′. For a rejection of another influential early etymology see N.E.D. s.v.: ‘the alleged Tartar word mama ‘earth’ (usually cited as the etymon) is not known to exist’.