Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An animal, such as a wild boar, that has tusks.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wild boar with large tusks.
  • noun An elephant whose tusks are grown and retained.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) An elephant having large tusks.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A large wild boar.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An animal, such as a bull elephant or a boar, with large tusks.
  • noun UK, Orkney, Shetland A tool used in peat cutting.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any mammal with prominent tusks (especially an elephant or wild boar)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From tusk +‎ -er.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse torfskeri, from torf ("turf") + skera ("to cut").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tusker.

Examples

  • Closely related to the wild boar (Sus scrofa), also sometimes called a tusker, are the bearded pig (Sus barbatus) of Borneo and Malaya, the crested pig (Sus cristata) of East Asia, etc. The American humorist, Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937), scored his first great success (in 1906) with a book entitled Pigs is Pigs.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol V No 2 1978

  • They would consume your fallen body in a moment, and I know that a "tusker" would sever a femoral artery and dispatch a hunter or child if it felt provoked, even if that very child had hand fed it that morning.

    Archive 2005-11-01 2005

  • They would consume your fallen body in a moment, and I know that a "tusker" would sever a femoral artery and dispatch a hunter or child if it felt provoked, even if that very child had hand fed it that morning.

    On the Nobility of Dogs 2005

  • Professor Romanes gives an instance of a fine 'tusker' which, when badly wounded, was promptly surrounded by his companions.

    Chatterbox, 1905. Various

  • In Ceylon, a "tusker" is a kind of spectre, to be talked of by a few who have had the good luck to see one.

    Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon Samuel White Baker 1857

  • Hell hath no fury like a male elephant scorned, a team of park rangers agree as they search the jungles of southern India for a rogue 'tusker' which has killed at least 12 females which rejected him.

    Home | Mail Online 2010

  • It is a spot so far removed from human care that I have seen, a few yards from the tents, fresh tracks made by the wild boar as he has rooted o 'nights; and once, as I sat looking out over the water when the rest of the camp was asleep, a dark shadow passed, not fifty yards distant, going head to wind up the hill, and I knew it for "tusker" wending his way to the village gardens, where the maize was green.

    Morocco S.L. Bensusan

  • The 42-year-old Indian tusker – called Sony – died two months ago of heart failure and the plan to turn the enourmous corpse into bio diesel was agreed on after a special park task force was set up to work out how best to work out what to do with the body of the prízed symbol of peace and friendship.

    Gandhi Peace Symbol Made Into Diesel | Impact Lab 2010

  • If you have one guy with binoculars, your chances of seeing a tusker are pretty limited and it will take a long time to succeed.

    First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011

  • If you have one guy with binoculars, your chances of seeing a tusker are pretty limited and it will take a long time to succeed.

    First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.