mastodon

Etymology

First attested 1813, from translingual Mastodon (1806), coined by French naturalist Georges Cuvier, from Ancient Greek μαστός (mastós, “breast”) + ὀδούς (odoús, “tooth”), from the similarity of the mammilloid (“nipple-shaped”) projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.

noun

1. Extinct elephant-like mammal of the genus †Mammut that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differs from elephants and mammoths in the form of the molar teeth.
   When, exactly, Europeans first stumbled upon the bones of an American mastodon is unclear. An isolated molar unearthed in a field in upstate New York was sent off to London in 1705; it was labeled the “tooth of a Giant”. 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, chapter 2, in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Henry Holt and Company
2. (figurative) Anything big or clunky.
   The battery is dying, and Natalia's iPhone charger doesn't fit my mastodon of a phone anyway. 2017, Nina Laurin, Girl Last Seen
   Nor does it work for governance: the policy has become such a mastodon that we can't adapt it quickly enough to different regions or different circumstances. 2020, Finn Laursen, The Development of the EU as a Sea-Policy Actor