Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various extinct, often gigantic, carnivorous or herbivorous reptiles of the orders Saurischia and Ornithischia that were chiefly terrestrial and existed during the Mesozoic Era.
- n. A relic of the past: "living dinosaurs of the world of vegetation” ( John Olmsted).
- n. One that is hopelessly outmoded or unwieldy: "The old, big-city teaching hospital is a dinosaur” ( Peggy Breault).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of the Dinosauria. Also spelled deinosaur.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various extinct reptiles belonging to the Dinosauria, existing between about 230 million and 65 million years ago.
- n. figuratively, colloquial A person or organisation which is very old or has very old-fashioned views or is not willing to change and adapt.
- n. figuratively, colloquial Anything that is no longer in common use or practice.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Paleon.) One of the Dinosauria.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek δεινός (deinos, "terrible, awesome, mighty, fearfully great") + σαῦρος (sauros, "lizard, reptile"). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin Dīnosauria, group name, from Dīnosaurus, former genus name : Greek deinos, monstrous + Greek sauros, lizard. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The name dinosaur comes from the Greek words for monstrous lizard.”
“The term "dinosaur" derived from the English paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842 and in essence it means "terrible, powerful, wondrous lizard.”
The Huffington Post: Lance Simmens: Dinosaurs and Fossil Fools
“The term dinosaur was invented by Sir Richard Owen in 1842 to describe a large extinct reptile.”
“The replica dinosaur is almost 6 feet tall and uses tens of thousands of bricks.”
“Mick sighed dramatically, as he often did when confronted with what he called my dinosaur tendencies.”
“It was given to the Natural History Museum by renowned fossil hunter Sir Richard Owen who helped found the museum and famously coined the word "dinosaur".”
“Sir Richard Owen - the man who coined the word "dinosaur.”
“The name dinosaur, meaning terrible lizard, represents an order of fossil reptiles.”
“It was okay as a novel (but not especially original) and fine as a film (even if it was scientifically implausible), but the threat of being eaten by a dinosaur is a hardy one, and as Transformers proved (the eighties incarnation, not the Michael Bay war crime), talking dinosaurs are fucking brilliant.”
I’m Catching Up With Where My NaNoWriMo Novel Is Going « The Graveyard
“Hoodathunk (sponsored by the FSM, Noodles for Freedom!) says: usurpataneous: a small dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dinosaur’.
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®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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You animal!
Names of animals that are also used to describe kinds of people. Nouns only, preferably single word.
For a related list, see sionnach's beastly verbs.rabbit, shark, hog, pussycat, bear, bull, skunk, hawk, wildcat, buck, slug, heifer and 112 more...
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Sophaloaf's list
Favorites!
belle, starfish, photography, buddha, dinosaur, floccinaucinihili..., hypoallergenic, sailor, gorgeous, adhesive, imagination, artichokes and 55 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
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-saur, sauro-, -saurus
lizard
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savage215's Words
pipe, yankee, knickerbocker, tennis, plasma, magma, volcano, car, truck, television, tv, word and 445 more...
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General Loveliness
hirsute, indubitably, gossamer, continuum, murderous, harpy, chimera, foofaraw, hoi polloi, mollycoddle, villein, nonplussed and 121 more...
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junestag's Words
postmodernism, cat, fish, rabbit, dell, coffee, elearning, mazda, php, mysql, flash, blogger and 755 more...
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Geology Words
The descriptive science described.
earth, lithosphere, mineral, convection, heat flow, ore, deep time, fossil, formation, rock, tectonics, extinction and 281 more...
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Wishful Words
wish, wishful, wishfully, dinosaur, malachite, lovely, whimsy, whisper, whismical, dream, treasure, whisp and 66 more...
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faded glory
days of yore, once upon a time, obsolete, passé, cliché, démodé, jaded, former glory, bygone, ruined, ancient, decrepit and 45 more...
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Sometimes, words are nice.
I like the way that I talk.
These are some words that I like to use.inevitable, kids, constellations, flabbergasted, night, kin, love, penultimate, february, dinosaur, ravishing, the cosmos and 3 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dinosaur.
yarb I'm yoinking peak dinosaur from that interesting article. Aug 31, 2009
chained_bear Will We Ever Run Out of Dinosaur Bones? Answer: Probably not. Aug 31, 2009