Meanings
- A hypothesized extinct relative to the hippopotamus that supposedly lived in northern or western Europe during the Ice Age.
Above, the woolly hippopotamus (Hippopotamus Major) of western Europe; below, the southern elephant (Elephas Meridionalis). Remains of both are found in the riverdrifts of France and Spain[…]
1925, Lucretia Thatcher Perry Osborn, Chain of Life, page 1633 more examples
Here you will find evidence that over the hills of Craven straight-tusked elephant, slender-nosed rhinoceros, woolly hippopotamus, and ox (Bos Primigenius) once roamed, and ended their days in the Victoria cave, a hyena's den, probably during the tropical period of the Great Inter-Glacial period.
1956, Marie Hartley, Joan Ingleby, The Yorkshire Dales, page 87It is true that the "woolly hippopotamus", now extinct, was adapted to a cold climate!...In 1960, excavations in Larissa in Thessaly brought to light "mammoth and hippopotamus bones as well as tools made of flint and bone[…]
a. 1985, Fernand Braudel, Roselyne de Ayala, Paule Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean, published 2001, page 25Below these deposits was a thick layer of glacial clay, separating the comparitively modern remains from the bones of pre-Ice Age creatures such as woolly hippopotamus, slender-nosed rhinoceros and straight-tusked elephant, which doubtless roamed the district during the warm inter-glacial period.
1992, W. R. Mitchell, Three Peaks and Malhamdale, page 7
Cite this entry
woolly hippopotamus. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woolly%20hippopotamus
“woolly hippopotamus.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woolly%20hippopotamus. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “woolly hippopotamus,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woolly%20hippopotamus.
Source: woolly hippopotamus on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.