mammoth: [18] Mammoth is a Russian contribution to English. The word was borrowed from early modern Russian mammot, an adaptation of Tatar mamont ‘earth’ (the reason for the animal being so named is that the first remains of mammoths to be found were dug out of the frozen soil of Siberia). The adjectival use of the word for ‘huge’ dates from the early 19th century (‘The dancing very bad; the performers all had mammoth legs’, private diary of Sir Robert Wilson, 1814). [mammoth etymology, mammoth origin, 英语词源]