Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various small, mostly tailless, extinct flying reptiles of the order Pterosauria that existed during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An extinct reptile of the genus Pterodactylus or order Pterosauria; a pterosaurian; an ornithosaurian; a flying-dragon. Also pterodactylian.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various small, mostly tailless, extinct flying reptiles of the order Pterosauria that existed during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Paleon.) An extinct flying reptile; one of the Pterosauria. See
Illustration in Appendix.
WordNet 3.0
- n. extinct flying reptile
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek πτερόν (pteron, "wing") + δάκτυλος (dactulos, "finger") (Wiktionary)
- New Latin Pterodactylus, genus name : Greek pteron, feather, wing; see -pter + Greek daktulos, finger. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Side note, the music played when Toth-Amon floats off the dark tower balcony and hand-animates into that rad mist-pterodactyl is the some of the best music out of both Conans.”
“A mere explanation that a pterodactyl was a kind of flying reptile belonging to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods was insufficient.”
DEVELOPMENT A NOVEL BY W. BRYHER WITH A PREFACE BY AMY LOWELL
“No matter a persons' level of scientific knowledge most can identify a picture of a flying reptile as a "pterodactyl".”
“I'd like to hear him try in private, and when he got through trying to spell "pterodactyl" you wouldn't know whether it was a fish or a beast or a bird, and whether it flew on its legs or walked with its wings.”
Mark Twain`s speeches; with an introduction by William Dean Howells.
“Now I'll bet there isn't a man here who can spell "pterodactyl," not even the prisoner at the bar.”
Mark Twain`s speeches; with an introduction by William Dean Howells.
“It’s essentially the same as my version, but instead of having our heroes Basil and Louise in little, white boxes, they’re riding the pterodactyl, which is exactly where they should be.”
“You see, there's this sort of dragonlike flying reptile that used to exist, called a pterodactyl, and this is a flying moon, so - ”
“Duane Hodgkinson, an American World War II veteran, played a key role in living - pterosaur investigations from 2004 through 2007 by giving a detailed description of the "pterodactyl" he and another soldier saw in 1944 in New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea).”
“A 136 million-year old pterodactyl egg on a shelf in the natural history [...]”
“In the shrinking light, I imagine brontosaurs lumbering up the hillsides and an orange pterodactyl soaring above me.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pterodactyl’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
walking, bicycle, bus, train, motorcycle, airplane, car, truck, segway, limousine, roller coaster, wheelbarrow and 130 more...
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Starts with a silent letter
...with grateful thanks to telofy (for "cnidarian"), and to the song "Crazy ABC's" by Barenaked Ladies.
cnidarian, mnemonic, chthonic, ptarmigan, psoriasis, psittacine, bdellium, aisle, czar, gnarly, gnat, gnaw and 82 more...
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Words with a P in them
opalescent, apposite, kelp, culprit, corporeal, copper, impinge, impose, impetus, impassible, oppress, maple and 40 more...
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Wordizens/Wordnikians
This list will allow you to leave comments for Wordies/Wordizens/Wordnikians, etc. Feel free to add your own name to the list. Also, you might want to link to your name-word on your profile (for an...
Rolig, yarb, blafferty, hernesheir, ruzuzu, sionnach, fbharjo, leaden, This account eith..., wordplayer, bilby, pterodactyl and 45 more...
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nachchba's Words
stentorian, blasé, ennui, concinnity, melee, photokeratitis, skiffle, refulgence, mongrel, fakir, caid, eudaimonia and 215 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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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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ptero-, -pter
relating to or having wings
pterosaur, helicopter, pterodactyl, hymenopter, pteroclid, pteronophobia, homopterous, pterygoblast, pterylosis
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parody's Words
defenestrate, behemoth, floss, macchiato, glom, emu, alpaca, crocheted, ampersand, charade, conflate, salacious and 193 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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tomax's Words
legerdemain, yayo, extravasation, wont, faze, coxswain, concomitant, enclave, unguent, rhabdomyolysis, effluent, puerile and 432 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Journey to the Centre of the Earth
From the story by Jules Verne.
rhombohedral crys..., retinasphaltic re..., gehlenites, Fassaites, molybdenites, tungstates, manganese, titanite, zirconium, disenchant, mignonette, bibliomania and 101 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pterodactyl.
ruzuzu *pays ptoll pto pthe pterodactyl* Dec 2, 2011
chained_bear UAV! Now we know what ptero's REALLY been up to lately... Mar 12, 2010
bilby An off-road Guzzladon, maybe? How about a list of Prehistoric SUV Names instead? Sep 1, 2008
pterodactyl I've known since about age 5 -- my dinosaur phase -- that pterodactyls are not dinosaurs. (And being 5, I would go around telling this to everyone. Five-year-olds are masters of the non sequitur).
What I didn't find out until recently is that, while some pterosaurs were quite large, pterodactylus was fairly small.
Quoting Wikipedia:
I feel diminished. I feel inadequate. I feel like I need to go out and buy a huge prehistoric SUV to compensate. Aug 31, 2008
chained_bear "Pterodactyls or pterodactyloids (meaning "winged finger") were flying, prehistoric reptiles. They were a subgroup of pterosaurs and were not dinosaurs." (As I'm sure ptero would tell us.) (enchantedlearning.com) Aug 29, 2008