Word of the Day

: July 22, 2009

pachydermatous

adjective pack-ih-DER-muh-tuss

What It Means

1 : of or relating to the pachyderms

2 a : thick, thickened

b : callous, insensitive

pachydermatous in Context

With 18 eventful years in office behind him, the senator has developed a pachydermatous layer of self-protection that the latest media attacks cannot penetrate.

Did You Know?

Elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses -- it was a French zoologist named Georges Cuvier who in the late 1700s first called these and other thick-skinned, hoofed mammals "Pachydermata." The word, from Greek roots, means "thick-skinned" in New Latin (the Latin used in scientific description and classification). In the 19th century, we began calling such animals "pachyderms," and we also began using the adjective "pachydermatous" to refer, both literally and figuratively, to the characteristics and qualities of pachyderms -- especially their thick skin. American poet James Russell Lowell first employed "pachydermatous" with the figurative "thick-skinned" sense in the mid-1800s: "A man cannot have a sensuous nature and be pachydermatous at the same time."