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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

elephant.

A large mammal of the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea, having a trunk, and native to Africa and Asia.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɛlɪfənt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈɛləfənt/Canada, General-American/ˈeləfənt/Australia, New-Zealand/elefant/Philippines
  1. A large mammal of the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea, having a trunk, and native to Africa and Asia.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Anything huge and ponderous.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable
  3. Synonym of elephant paper.

    countable · uncountable
  4. used when counting to add length, so that each count takes about one second

    UK · childish · countable · uncountable
    Let's play hide and seek. I'll count. One elephant, two elephant, three elephant...
  5. Ivory.

    obsolete · uncountable
  6. A xiangqi piece that is moved two points diagonally, may not jump over intervening pieces and may not cross the river.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English elefant, elefaunt, from Old French elefant, elefan, olifant, re-latinized in Middle French as elephant, from Latin elephantus, from Ancient Greek ἐλέφᾱς (eléphās) (gen. ἐλέφαντος (eléphantos)). Believed to be derived from an Afroasiatic form such as Proto-Berber *eḷu (“elephant”) (compare Tamahaq êlu, Tamasheq alu) or Egyptian ꜣbw (“elephant; ivory”). More at ivory. Replaced Middle English olifant (from the aforementioned Old French form, from Vulgar Latin *olifantus), which replaced Old English elpend (“elephant”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.