musth

plural musths · alternative must

1. alsoattributiveuncountableChiefly preceded by in or on: the state each year during which a male animal (usually a camel or an elephant) exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity due to a high level of testosterone.

   No animal in the world is so dangerous as an elephant in must.

   1871, Charles Darwin, “Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part II (Sexual Selection), page 240

   5 more examples

   The Taroos, or elephant catchers, having marked down a wild herd of 300 or 400 elephants, the following preparations are made. About 200 Taroos collect together, mounted upon elephants, and accompanied by two large "taking elephants," highly fed, and kept always musth, (sensual) and when in that state their ferocity is such, that no one but their keeper dares to approach them. […] The active little Taroos now slide down from their steeds, and under cover of one of the musth elephants, who pushes himself forcibly against the wild one selected from the herd, they, in a most dexterous and daring manner, slip the moosack on to each of the hind legs, which performance occupies about three minutes.

   1849 October, T. S., “Sporting Scenes in Nepaul”, in Colburn’s United Service Magazine, and Naval and Military Journal, part III, London: H. Hurst, […], →OCLC, page 340

   I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed / That the Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.

   1887, Rudyard Kipling, “[Departmental Ditties] Municipal”, in Departmental Ditties and Barrack-room Ballads (The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling; XXXII), Sussex edition, London: Macmillan and Co., […], published 1938, →OCLC, page 36

   I have seen men deal with enraged elephants and live; but never was man yet born of woman that met my lord the elephant in his musth and lived to tell of the taming.

   1893, Rudyard Kipling, “My Lord the Elephant”, in Many Inventions, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 44

   Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the 'phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? […] It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must". It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped.

   1936, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Shooting an Elephant”, in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, London: Secker and Warburg, published 1950, →OCLC, pages 2–3

   [T]he first officer told us about the musths. It is common knowledge among handlers that male elephants have periodic fits of madness and that they are extremely obstreperous and dangerous at these times. A male in such a condition is called a musth elephant.

   1967 May, W. Gurnee Dyer, “Elephant Work in South India: A Traveler’s Account of the Gainful Employment of Elephas maximus”, in James K. Page, Jr., editor, Natural History, volume LXXVI, number 5, New York, N.Y.: American Museum of Natural History, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 42, columns 1–2

2. countableAn instance of this.