Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The typical and best-known genus of the family Glyptodontidæ; the long-tailed fossil armadillos or glyptodons, with 5 toes on the hind feet and 4 on the fore, the fifth digit of which is wanting. Species are G. clavipes and G. reticulatus, from the Pleistocene of South America.
- n. [lowercase] An animal of the family Glyptodontidæ) or Hoplophoridæ; one of the gigantic fossil armadillos of South America. They are all distinguished from the living armadillos not only by their superior size, but by having the carapace composed of a single solid piece without movable segments, and also by possessing a ventral shield or plastron. The superficial resemblance to tortoises is striking; the feet are like those of some turtles, and, as in chelonians, the head could be withdrawn into the shell, though the rest of the vertebral column is a solid tube. The genera are several and the species rather numerous.
Wiktionary
- n. paleontology An extinct South American quaternary mammal, allied to the armadillos, with tessellated scales and fluted teeth.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Paleon.) An extinct South American quaternary mammal, allied to the armadillos. It was as large as an ox, was covered with tessellated scales, and had fluted teeth.
Etymologies
- Ancient Greek carved, engraved + tooth. See glyph. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The glyptodon has if anything replaced the mylodon in my affections—there are about 6 whole ones in the Museum of La Plata—an enormous armadillo up to 9-10 feet long, each scale of its armour looking like a Japanese chrysthanthemum.”
“My great grandma would tell me stories about riding her pony to school and I wanted to ride the glyptodon.”
"Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done."
“They had some really odd looking creatures I've never seen in any other natural history museums I've visited, like the giant armadillo creature that the website tells me is a glyptodon.”
"Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done."
“[1] The glyptodon and armadillo are mammalian; the tortoise is a chelonian, a reptile, distinct classes of the animal kingdom; therefore the latter cannot be a representative of the former.”
“Again, no armadillo _now living_ presents nearly so remarkable a speciality of structure as was possessed by the _extinct_ glyptodon.”
“Patience! the glyptodon and the dodo have been dead for ages.”
“One would think they were invulnerable, yet the glyptodon and the chlamydothere, with many other equally well protected creatures, have long ago disappeared from the earth, but how and why nobody knows.”
“The glyptodon is known to have been more than eleven feet in length, and his near-kinsman, the chlamydothere, was even larger.”
“Ground-sloth and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon, and all the associated animals of large size vanished, and South America, though still retaining its connection with North America, once again became a land with a mammalian life small and weak compared to that of North America and the Old World.”
“Ground sloth and glyptodon, sabre-tooth, horse and mastodon, and all the associated animals of large size, vanished, and South America, though still retaining its connection with North America, once again became a land with a mammalian life small and weak compared to that of North America and the Old World.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘glyptodon’.
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Prehistoric and Extinct Mammals 'n' S...
Excuse our dust while we renovate to serve you better.
aepycamelus, adapid, archaeocete, zygorhiza, zalambdalestes, woolly rhino, coelodonta, woolly mammoth, ausktribosphenos, uintatherium, trilophodon, trigonias and 126 more...
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Time Out New York
words looked up while copyediting for this magazine
tonsorial, nudnick, doyenne, lothario, ebon, compere, cloaca, carom, evince, jocosity, profligacy, favela and 110 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for glyptodon.
yarb I fel like singing, and what I feel like singing is "this is ground control to glyptodon..." Oct 2, 2010
chained_bear Am I freaky for thinking that it must have been pretty cute? (And slow.) Sep 4, 2008
yarb An ancient ancestor of the armadillo. Believed to have been about the same size and weight as a Volkswagen Beetle. Jan 1, 2008