pterosaur

US/ˈtɛɹəˌsɔɹ/

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Other forms: pterosaurs

A pterosaur is a flying reptile of the age of the great lizards. A giant pterosaur.

It was not a dinosaur and not a bird, and its wing was a membrane on one enormous finger. The largest pterosaur had the wingspan of a small aeroplane and probably hunted on foot.

Definitions of pterosaur

1nounpterosaurA flying reptile of the age of the great lizards.B2
“The pterosaur had a wingspan of eleven metres.”

pterosaur is a reptile.

Where it comes from

Greek pteron, a wing, plus sauros, a lizard.

Proto-Indo-European
*peth₂-
Ancient Greek
πτερόν — feather, wing
English, today
pterosaur

Built from

σαῦρος · Ancient Greek — lizard, reptile

From ptero- + -saur, from Ancient Greek πτερόν (“feather, wing”) and σαῦρος (“lizard, reptile”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Dinosaurs & Prehistory

Practise this word

pterosaur in the wild

Like all pterosaurs, Pterodactylus had wings formed by a skin and muscle membrane stretching from its elongated fourth finger to its hind limbs.
Pterodactylus
Pterodactylus lived alongside other small pterosaurs such as the well-known Rhamphorhynchus, as well as other genera such as Scaphognathus, Anurognathus and Ctenochasma.
Pterodactylus
Traditionally, pterosaurs were divided into two major types.
Pterosaur
Basal pterosaurs (also called non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs or 'rhamphorhynchoids') were smaller animals, with up to a two-metre (6 ft 7 in) wingspan, fully toothed jaws and, typically, long tails.
Pterosaur
When the first fossils of Pteranodon were found, they were assigned to toothed pterosaur genera, which includes Ornithocheirus and Pterodactylus.
Pteranodon

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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