Other forms: dinosaurs
A dinosaur is one of the large reptiles that dominated the land for over 150 million years and died out about 66 million years ago. A dinosaur skeleton, dinosaur bones, the age of the dinosaurs.
Not everything prehistoric is a dinosaur: pterosaurs flew and plesiosaurs swam, and neither group counts. Birds, on the other hand, are dinosaurs — descended directly from small feathered theropods — so the group never entirely died out. Figuratively, a dinosaur is a person or organisation hopelessly out of date. Note that the famous ones, Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, lived nearer to us in time than to Stegosaurus.
1noundinosaurOne of the large reptiles that lived millions of years ago.
“The dinosaur in the entrance hall is a plaster cast.”
2nounhopelesslySomebody or something hopelessly out of date.
“The whole department is run by dinosaurs.”
dinosaur is a prehistoric animal.
Richard Owen coined the name in 1842 from Greek deinos, terrible or fearfully great, plus sauros, lizard. He meant fearfully great as a compliment to their size, and terrible lizard is a slight mistranslation that has never been dislodged.
Ancient Greek
δεινός
English, today
dinosaur
Built from
From Ancient Greek δεινός. From Ancient Greek δεινός (“terrible, awesome, mighty, fearfully great”) + σαῦρος (“lizard, reptile”). Coined as Dinosaur and Dinosauria by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1841/1842.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Animals, Dinosaurs & Prehistory