ELEPHANTINE DEFINITIONS - 13 definitions found
elephantine adj 1: of great mass; huge and bulky; "a jumbo jet"; "jumbo shrimp" [syn: elephantine, gargantuan, giant, jumbo] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) Elephantine geographical name island S Egypt in the Nile opposite Aswân population 1814 Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) elephantine adjective Date: 1610 1. a. having enormous size or strength ; massive b. clumsy, ponderous <elephantine verse> 2. of or relating to an elephant Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner\'s English Dictionary elephantine If you describe something as elephantine, you mean that you think it is large and clumsy. ...elephantine clumsiness... His legs were elephantine. ADJ [disapproval] English Explanatory Dictionary elephantine ˌelɪˈfæntaɪn adj. 1 of elephants. 2 a huge. b clumsy, unwieldy (elephantine movements; elephantine humour). [L elephantinus f. Gk elephantinos (as ELEPHANT)] The Nuttall Encyclopaedia (1907) Elephantine a small island below the first cataract of the Nile; contains interesting monuments and ruins of the ancient Roman and Egyptian civilisations. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Elephantine \El`e*phan"tine\, a. [L. elephantinus of ivory, Gr. ?: cf. F. ['e]l['e]phantin.] Pertaining to the elephant, or resembling an elephant (commonly, in size); hence, huge; immense; heavy; as, of elephantine proportions; an elephantine step or tread. Elephantine epoch (Geol.), the epoch distinguished by the existence of large pachyderms. --Mantell. Elephantine tortoise (Zo["o]l.), a huge land tortoise; esp., Testudo elephantina, from islands in the Indian Ocean; and T. elephantopus, from the Galapagos Islands. Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) elephantine adj. Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous hogs (owing perhaps to poor design founded on brute force and ignorance}) and exceedingly hairy in source form. An elephantine program may be functional and even friendly, but (as in the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to have around all the same (and, like a pachyderm, difficult to maintain). In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the mention of the offending program. Usage: semi-humorous. Compare `has the elephant nature' and the somewhat more pejorative monstrosity. See also second-system effect and baroque. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia ELEPHANTINE el-e-fan-ti'-ne. See SEVENEH. Soule\'s Dictionary of English Synonyms elephantine a. 1. Huge, immense, gigantic, colossal, Cyclopean, Herculean, enormous, very large. 2. Clumsy, unwieldy. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 118 Moby Thesaurus words for "elephantine": Atlantean, Brobdingnagian, Cyclopean, Gargantuan, Herculean, Homeric, Latinate, abysmal, arid, astronomic, awkward, barren, blah, blank, bloodless, bombastic, bulky, characterless, clumsy, cold, colorless, colossal, cramped, cumbersome, cumbrous, dead, dismal, draggy, drearisome, dreary, dry, dryasdust, dull, dusty, effete, elephantlike, empty, enormous, epic, etiolated, fade, flat, forced, formal, gargantuan, giant, giantlike, gigantic, graceless, guinde, halting, heavy, heavy-handed, heroic, ho-hum, hollow, huge, hulking, hulky, immense, inane, inexcitable, infinite, inkhorn, insipid, jejune, jumbo, labored, leaden, lifeless, low-spirited, lubberly, lumbering, lumpish, lumpy, maladroit, mammoth, massive, massy, mighty, monster, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, pale, pallid, pedestrian, plodding, pointless, poky, pompous, ponderous, prodigious, profound, sesquipedalian, slow, solemn, spiritless, sterile, stiff, stilted, stodgy, stuffy, stupendous, superficial, tasteless, tedious, titanic, towering, tremendous, turgid, ungraceful, uninspired, unlively, unwieldy, vapid, vast, wooden |
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