Cretaceous means of the last age of the great reptiles. The Cretaceous period, Cretaceous rocks, late Cretaceous.
It ran from about 145 to 66 million years ago and ended with the impact that killed the non-bird dinosaurs. Flowering plants appeared and spread during it. The name comes from the Latin for chalk: the white cliffs of southern England are Cretaceous, laid down as the shells of countless tiny organisms.
1adjectivecretaceousOf the last age of the great reptiles.
“Tyrannosaurus rex lived in the late Cretaceous period.”
cretaceous is a geological period.
Latin cretaceus means chalky, from creta, chalk. The period is named for the chalk laid down in it.
Latin
cretaceus — chalky
English, today
cretaceous
From Latin cretaceus (“chalky”), from Latin creta.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Dinosaurs & Prehistory