Word.ws English Dictionary

gomphothere

UK/ˈɡɒm.fə.θɪə(ɹ)/US/ˈɡɑm.fə.θɪɹ/

gomphothere noun: any of the extinct proboscideans of the family Gomphotheriidae, that lived in North America and Eurasia during the Miocene and Pliocene (12—1.6 million years ago), and latterly also in South America (around 3 million to 9100 years ago).

gomphothere: any of the extinct proboscideans of the family Gomphotheriidae, that lived in North America and...
Image: Ryan Somma, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gomphothere (plural gomphotheres)

  1. Any of the extinct proboscideans of the family Gomphotheriidae, that lived in North America and Eurasia during the Miocene and Pliocene (12—1.6 million years ago), and latterly also in South America (around 3 million to 9100 years ago).
    • The main lineage, the bunodont gomphotheres (called bunomastodonts by some authors), can be traced from Phiomia (from the Oligocene of North Africa) to Gomphotherium (a widespread Miocene genus), Tetralophodon (from the Old World and North America), and Stegomastodon (from the late Tertiary and...1980, Björn Kurtén, Elaine Anderson, Pleistocene Mammals of North America, page 346
    • In contrast, the early gomphotheres have lowcrowned bunodont cheek teeth that are adapted for crushing and grinding rather than cutting.[…]The elephantids emerged from gomphothere stock near the end of the Miocene.2006, Thure Cerling, John M. Harris, Meave G. Leakey, “12: Environmentally Driven Dietary Adaptations in African Animals”, in James R. Ehleringer, Thure Cerling, M. Denise Dearing, editors, A History...

Forms of gomphothere

pluralgomphotheres

Origin of gomphothere

From Ancient Greek γόμφος (gómphos, “nail, peg, fastener, joint”) + θηρίον (thēríon, “beast”).

Questions about gomphothere

What does gomphothere mean?
Gomphothere means any of the extinct proboscideans of the family Gomphotheriidae, that lived in North America and Eurasia during the Miocene and Pliocene (12—1.6 million years ago), and latterly also in South America (around 3 million to 9100 years ago).
What part of speech is gomphothere?
Gomphothere is a noun.
How do you pronounce gomphothere?
Gomphothere is pronounced /ˈɡɒm.fə.θɪə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of gomphothere?
The plural of gomphothere is gomphotheres.

Words near gomphothere in the dictionary

  1. gomphonemoid
  2. gomphoses
  3. gomphoside
  4. gomphosis
  5. gomphoteriid
  6. gomphothere
  7. gomphotheres
  8. gomphotherid
  9. gomphotherids
  10. gomphotheriid
  11. gomphotheriids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gomphothere (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “gomphothere.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gomphothere. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.