Why Is an Elephant Called a Pachyderm?

It's from pachys, meaning "thick," and derma, meaning "skin." In the late 1700s the French naturalist Georges Cuvier adapted the Greek term as pachyderme and used it for any one of a whole assemblage of hoofed animals having thickish skin: elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, tapirs, horses, pigs, and more.

Is pachyderm another word for elephant?

any of the thick-skinned, nonruminant ungulates, as elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses.

What does a pachyderm look like?

A pachyderm is a really big animal with really thick skin, like an elephant or a hippo. If you break this word down to its parts, you see pachy which means thick and derm which means skin. ... He believed that thick skinned animals all belonged to the same family and categorized them together.