Mastodon

See also: mastodon

Translingual

Etymology

Coined by French naturalist Georges Cuvier, from Ancient Greek μαστός (mastós, “breast”) + ὀδούς (odoús, “tooth”), from the similarity of the mammilloid projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.

Proper noun

Mastodon m

1. (obsolete) A taxonomic genus within the family Mammutidae – the mastodon, a type of mammoth; replaced by Mammut.

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English

Proper noun

Mastodon

1. (social media) A decentralized microblogging platform, part of the Fediverse.
   • 2022 November 9, Amanda Hoover, “Twitter Users Have Caused a Mastodon Meltdown”, in Wired‎^[1], ISSN 1059-1028:

     Since Musk bought the bird app last month, users are looking for ways to access Mastodon, the open source microblogging platform that isn’t quite Twitter but seems to be the closest thing to it, and they’re signing up for its many servers in droves.

Noun

Mastodon (plural Mastodons)

1. A nickname for both the 4-8-0 and (though incorrectly) the 4-10-0 train configurations.

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German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmastodɔn/

Noun

Mastodon n (strong, genitive Mastodons, plural Mastodonten)

1. mastodon

Declension

Declension of Mastodon [neuter, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	das	Mastodon	die	Mastodonten
genitive	eines	des	Mastodons	der	Mastodonten
dative	einem	dem	Mastodon	den	Mastodonten
accusative	ein	das	Mastodon	die	Mastodonten

Further reading

• “Mastodon” in Duden online
• “Mastodon” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache