Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various large, thick-skinned, hoofed mammals such as the elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Thick-skinned, as a member of the Pachydermata. Also pachydermal, pachydermatous, pachydermous.
- n. A non-ruminant hoofed quadruped; any member of the old order Pachydermata.
Wiktionary
- n. Someone (or something) with thick skin. It is used for animals such as an elephant or a hippopotamus.
- n. zoology A member of the obsolete taxonomic group Pachydermata, grouping of thick-skinned, hoofed animals such as the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephant, pig and horse.
- n. informal An elephant
- n. idiomatic A person that is not affected by (does not care about) what others say about him or her.
- n. idiomatic Someone who is insensitive.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) Any of various nonruminant hoofed mammals having very thick skin, including the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, one of the Pachydermata.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various nonruminant hoofed mammals having very thick skin: elephant; rhinoceros; hippopotamus.
Etymologies
- pachy- + derma, from Ancient Greek παχύδερμος (pakhudermos), from παχύς (pakhus, "thick") + δέρμα (derma, "skin"). (Wiktionary)
- French pachyderme, from New Latin *Pachyderma, sing. of Pachydermata, obsolete order name, from Greek pakhudermos, thick-skinned : pakhus, thick + derma, skin; see derma1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The paper said the pachyderm is estimated to be 18 years old and is the fifth white elephant captured since 2001.”
Voice of America: Burma Says White Elephant Foretells Peace, Prosperity
“Dismissing constitutional checks and balances, which cannot resist it or deflect its course, the presidential pachyderm is spurred only by forces that stand outside institutions -- the media and the street.”
“To be in politics, a person is better off, bein 'called a pachyderm, rather than a weasel.”
“For example, "Elephants" actually features brass recalling a pachyderm call, accompanied by string screeches sounding like wayward seabirds.”
“Googling "pachyderm" repeatedly and not getting the desired result.”
“BBB when you can show me something in the asinus or pachyderm bill that shows where government is forcing doctors to work for a government run health care operation to provide public health care services you are just parroting things you have heard.”
“Jwest, a pachyderm sleeping on the job doesnt call the shots.”
Think Progress » Inhofe trying to get Bunning to end filibuster so highway funding doesn’t expire.
“Just the horn of an irascible, endangered pachyderm.”
“Although I have to say, at risk of losing my status as a sycophant (and when did a term for crazy members of the pachyderm family become the descriptor for a slavish follower? ba-dum-bum) that the "if I'm pissing people off on both sides of an issue then I must be right" ain't necessarily so.”
“Now, preventative measures are being taken to preserve the pachyderm population in the region.”
Voice of America: New Efforts Aim to Protect Elephants in India
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pachyderm’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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intueri's Words
inveigle, dolorous, archly, feckless, resplendent, concatenation, peripatetic, delightful, cookie, fey, ephemeral, effervescent and 347 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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LWC's Words
spork, heteroskedasticity, kurtosis, eigenspace, smithian, skewness, montanan, whoremonger, mellifluous, fishwife, papist, romanist and 142 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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tranquill's Words
loquacious, unmitigated, trundle, ephemeral, vociferous, trapezoidal, liminal, obsequious, veracity, squash, onomatopoeia, oscillate and 267 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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p is for...
my favorite voiceless bilabial plosive.
panacea, persnickety, panache, provenance, preternatural, penumbra, perfunctory, perspicacity, potentate, pinguid, plainsong, pleonastic and 228 more...
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kingrat47's Words
procrustean, devolution, cacophony, hippopotamus, crunch, beware, chortled, sibilant, subtle, undermine, acromegaly, acropolis and 645 more...
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
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The Decemberists
The Decemberists tend to use a lot of interesting words in their songs.
parapet, wastrel, mescaline, indolent, balustrade, vagabond, sprightly, grapple, gunwale, odalisque, timberline, moribund and 116 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pachyderm.
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