a. [ad. L. elephantin-us, a. Gr. ἐλεφάντινος, f. ἐλέφας ELEPHANT.]
1. Of or pertaining to an elephant, or elephants. Elephantine epoch (Geol.): the period marked by the abundance of large pachydermata.
1675. Hobbes, Odyssey (1677), 239. Find a word of truth you never will In those that come through th’ elephantine tooth.
a. 1711. Ken, Edmund, Poet Wks. 1721, II. 26. Their Garment was an Elephantine Hide.
1767. Hunter, Fossil Bones, in Phil. Trans., LVIII. 46. It was true elephantine ivory.
a. 1794. Sir W. Jones, Tales (1807), 180. Chaste elephantine bone By min’rals ting’d.
1862. Huxley, Lect. Working Men, 145. An elephantine mammal.
1875. Wonders Phys. World, II. IV. 300. Fossil elephantine remains.
2. Elephant-like, resembling an elephant in action or manner; clumsy, unwieldy.
1845. Hood, Remonst. Ode, ii. While poor elephantine I pick up a sixpence.
1860. Holland, Miss Gilbert, ix. 146. Cattle … frisked in ungraceful, elephantine play.
1881. A. G. C. Liddell, in Macm. Mag., XLIV. 478/2. The good-humour and somewhat elephantine spirits of the others were quite inexhaustible.
3. Resembling an elephant in size or strength; (of a task) requiring the strength of an elephant.
1630. Brathwait, Eng. Gentlewom. (1641), 279. Wearing great sleeves, mishapen Elephantine bodies, traines sweeping the earth.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), II. 286. This elephantine birth [a book of seven volumes].
1788. Wesley, Wks. (1872), VII. 24. Let there be … no elephantine hats or bonnets.
1849. Stovel, Canne’s Necess., Introd. 81. Elephantine as its strength appeared … its back was broken.
1880. Sat. Rev., 20 March, 387/1. The task of reviewing a dictionary must needs be elephantine.
4. Elephantine Leprosy: = ELEPHANTIASIS. rare.
1842. Borrow, Bible in Spain (1843), II. ix. 192. Sad is leprosy in all its forms, but most so when elephantine.
5. Rom. Antiq. (see quot. 1751). Also allusive.
1695. Ld. Preston, Boeth., III. 99. My Eye into each page shall look of the Elephantine Book [note, the Book of Nature].
1751. Chambers, Cycl., Elephantine … applied to certain books of the ancient Romans, wherein were recorded the transactions of the emperors, and the proceedings, acts, &c. of the senate…. They were called elephantine, because composed of ivory leaves, or tablets.
