oliphantn.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman olifan, olifant, oliphant, ollifaunt, holifaunt and Old French olifan, olifant, oliphant, etc., ivory, musical horn made of ivory (early 12th cent. in the Chanson de Roland), elephant (late 12th cent.; French oliphant , olifant (historical) the ivory horn in the Chanson de Roland: see below), apparently representing a post-classical Latin variant (compare post-classical Latin olefans elephant (15th cent. in a British source)) of classical Latin elephant- , elephantus (also elephans , elephas ) elephant n. (see below). Compare Middle Dutch olifant (Dutch olifant ), Old Occitan olifan elephant, Italian olifante musical horn (15th cent.). Compare also Breton olifant elephant, (in plural) ivory, and Welsh †oliffant elephant (15th cent.), ivory (16th cent.), which may be from Middle English or Old French. Compare elephant n., elp n.In later use in sense 2, probably immediately after French olifant, oliphant (historical) denoting Roland's ivory horn in the Old French poem Chanson de Roland, which was first published in a modern edition in 1837. A. Ernout and A. Meillet Dict. étym. de la langue latine (1959) at elephantus note that a Latin reflex in o- of ancient Greek ἐλέϕαντ- , ἐλέϕας ivory, elephant (see elephant n.) would be parallel with e.g. classical Latin oleum < ancient Greek ἔλαι(ϝ)ον (see oleum n.), classical Latin olīva < ancient Greek ἐλαί(ϝ)α (see olive n.¹), etc. Such a form may have existed early enough to have been borrowed into Germanic as a word meaning ‘camel’ (see olfend n.), but documentary evidence to support this is lacking.