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Glite Dictionary
🐘 A long tooth 🦷 To remove teeth 🗡️ To stab
to tusk

to tusk

9.6
To cut out the long pointed teeth from an animal, often for illegal trade
  • verb
  • /tʌsk/
translation icon : arrancar los colmillos a
  • Don't tusk the animals without permission!

Examples

  • The poachers were caught trying to tusk a herd of elephants for their valuable ivory.

  • They tusked the elephants yesterday.

  • Efforts to tusk walruses for research purposes are carefully regulated.

  • Illicit poachers often tusk elephants for the illegal ivory trade.

  • Veterinarians may tusk wild boars to prevent them from injuring each other.

  • Before the conservation program, estimates showed that thousands of elephants had been tusked for their tusks.

  • Hunters often tusk walruses for their ivory to sell on the black market.

Synonyms

to detusk
vsto tusk
  • NSFW
9.9

To remove the long front teeth of animals like elephants or rhinos

is broader and also applies to walruses

Antonyms

to preserve
496 3.4

To keep people and things safe from harm or change

Compounds

elephant-tusk
  • US
9.9

A plant with large pale flowers and a long curved beak-like seed pod

tusk shell
  • Specialized
9.9

A small sea animal with a long tube-shaped shell open at both ends

Surface Forms

tusk infinitive
tusked past
tusked past participle
tusking present participle
tusks third person singular

Etymology

Tusk as a verb comes from the noun tusk (a long tooth), and it originally meant to remove those long teeth from an animal, which is why to tusk an animal is to take its tusks.