Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various chiefly carnivorous saurischian dinosaurs of the large group Theropoda, characterized by bipedal locomotion, long jaws, and short forelimbs, and including allosaurus and velociraptor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having feet like those of (mammalian) beasts, as a dinosaur; of or pertaining to the Theropoda.
  • noun A carnivorous dinosaur of the order Theropoda.
  • noun Also theriopod, and (erroneously) therapod.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any large, bipedal dinosaur, of the suborder Theropoda, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of numerous carnivorous dinosaurs of the Triassic to Cretaceous with short forelimbs that walked or ran on strong hind legs

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From New Latin Thēropoda, suborder name : Greek thēr, wild beast; see ghwer- in Indo-European roots + New Latin -poda, -pod.]

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Examples

  • Also, we have another tiny, new dinosaur, the smallest carnivorous yet known from North America, Hesperonychus elizabethae, a 19-inch tall theropod from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada.

    "So lose some sleep and say you tried." mechangel 2009

  • True feathers, so far as we know, were restricted to maniraptorans (the theropod clade that includes oviraptors, dromaeosaurs and birds), but simpler, filament-like integumentary structures appear to have evolved much earlier within theropod history, probably at or around the base of Coelurosauria.

    Happy Christmas, from gigantic Spanish sauropods... or, alas, poor ‘Angloposeidon’ Darren Naish 2006

  • A preliminary account of a new tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous) of southern England.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • A preliminary account of a new tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous) of southern England.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • A preliminary account of a new tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous) of southern England.

    Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • A preliminary account of a new tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous) of southern England.

    ‘Angloposeidon’, the unreported story, part IV Darren Naish 2006

  • A preliminary account of a new tyrannosauroid theropod from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous) of southern England.

    ‘Angloposeidon’, the unreported story, part I Darren Naish 2006

  • If Mirischia the Brazilian theropod is one of my little pets, the enormous sauropod represented by the cervical vertebra MIWG. 7306 – affectionately (and unofficially) known to some of us as 'Angloposeidon' – is one of the biggest [the image at left, and that below, are my drawings of the specimen].

    ‘Angloposeidon’, the unreported story, part I Darren Naish 2006

  • If Mirischia the Brazilian theropod is one of my little pets, the enormous sauropod represented by the cervical vertebra MIWG. 7306 – affectionately (and unofficially) known to some of us as 'Angloposeidon' – is one of the biggest [the image at left, and that below, are my drawings of the specimen].

    Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

  • Known as a theropod because it walks on its two hind legs, the is said to be a close relative of T-rex.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

Comments

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  • old macdonald's version;

    "here a pod, thereapod everywhere a pod, pod..."

    June 21, 2009

  • t rex for one

    July 30, 2009

  • This is one of those words where dictionaries fail users. If you have to look up Theropod, it really doesn't help that the dictionary uses words like " saurischian" "Theropoda" - (nothing like a recursive definition) "Jurassic" "Cretaceous" : "bipedal locomotion, large jaws, and short forelimbs" - finally, after all the jargon they use plain english to describe a T-Rex.

    May 5, 2013