dinosaur

dinosaur

English

Picture dictionary
dinosaur
reptile reptile
diplodocus diplodocus triceratops triceratops Tyrannosaurus rex Tyrannosaurus rex

Bones of a Dinosaur.

Alternative forms

• deinosaur (archaic)
• Dinosaur, dinosaurus

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós, “terrible, awesome, mighty, fearfully great”) + σαῦρος (saûros, “lizard, reptile”). Coined as Dinosaur(s) and Dinosauria by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1841/1842.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdaɪnəsɔː(ɹ)/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: di‧no‧saur

Noun

dinosaur (plural dinosaurs)

1. (sciences) any of the animals belonging to the clade Dinosauria, especially those that existed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and are now extinct. [from c. 1840]
2. (colloquial) any member of the clade Dinosauria other than birds.
3. (proscribed) Any extinct reptile, not necessarily belonging to Dinosauria, that existed between about 230 million and 65 million years ago.
   • 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World‎:

     "Not a bird, my dear Roxton - not a bird." "A beast?" "No; a reptile - a dinosaur."

   • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 80:

     ‘Dinosaur!’ Denham exploded. ‘By the Power! A dinosaur!’

4. (figuratively, colloquial) Something or someone that is very old or old-fashioned, or is not willing to change and adapt.
   • 1975, Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month, published 1995:

     [The OS/360 linkage editor] is the culmination of years of development of static overlay technique. Yet it is also the last and finest of the dinosaurs, for it belongs to a system in which multiprogramming is the normal mode and dynamic core allocation the basic assumption.

   • 1999, Ron Harbin; Aaron Barker; Anthony L. Smith (lyrics and music), “What About Now”, performed by Lonestar:

     The sign in the window said for sale or trade on the last remaining dinosaur Detroit made.

5. (figuratively, colloquial) Anything no longer in common use or practice.

Usage notes

Many animals commonly described as dinosaurs do not belong to Dinosauria, and are not true dinosaurs. These include pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Describing these as dinosaurs is frowned upon in scientific writing but persists in the media and in everyday speech.

Conversely, not all members of Dinosauria became extinct in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Those that survived were the ancestors of modern birds, which therefore also belong to Dinosauria. However, birds are not usually described as dinosaurs, except in some popular science writing.

Synonyms

• (dinosaur excluding birds): nonavian dinosaur
• (person who is very old): fossil, old fart

Derived terms

• dinosaur-burner
• dinosaur hunter
• dinosaurian
• dinosauric
• dinosaur juice
• dinosaur plant
• duck-billed dinosaur
• ostrich dinosaur
• pedosaur
• -saur

 

Descendants

• → Hindi: डायनासोर (ḍāynāsor), डाइनोसर (ḍāinosar)
• → Urdu: ڈایناسور‎

Translations

prehistoric reptile

Albanian: dinozaur (sq) m Arabic: دِينَاصَوْر‎ (ar) m (dīnāṣawr) Armenian: դինոզավր (hy) (dinozavr) Assamese: ডাইন’চৰ (dainösor) Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܕܝܼܢܵܨܵܘܪܵܐ‎ m (dīnāṣāwrā) Asturian: dinosauriu m Azerbaijani: dinozavr (az) Basque: dinosauro Belarusian: дыназа́ўр m (dynazáŭr) Bengali: ডাইনোসর (ḍainosôrô) Bulgarian: диноза́вър (bg) m (dinozávǎr) Burmese: ဒိုင်နိုဆော (my) (duingnuihcau:) Catalan: dinosaure (ca) m Chinese: Cantonese: 恐龍／恐龙, 恐龙 (hung2 lung4) Mandarin: 恐龍／恐龙 (zh) (kǒnglóng) Cornish: arghpedrevan m Czech: dinosaurus (cs) m Danish: dinosaurus c Dutch: dinosaurus (nl) m Esperanto: dinosaŭro Estonian: dinosaurus Fijian: dainasoa Finnish: dinosaurus (fi), hirmulisko (fi) French: dinosaure (fr) m Galician: dinosauro (gl) m Georgian: დინოზავრი (dinozavri) German: Dinosaurier (de) m, Dinosaurus (de) m, Dino (de) m, Saurier (de) m Greek: δεινόσαυρος (el) m (deinósavros) Gujarati: ભીમસરટ (bhīmasraṭ) Hawaiian: nalala Hebrew: דִּינוֹזָאוּר / דינוזאו‎ m (dinozaur) Hindi: डायनासोर m (ḍāynāsor), भीमसरट m (bhīmasraṭ) Hungarian: dinoszaurusz (hu) Icelandic: risaeðla (is) f Ido: dinosauro (io) Indonesian: dinosaurus (id) Inuktitut: ᐆᒪᔪᕕᓂᑐᖃᐅᔮᓗᐃᑦ (oomayofinitoqaoyaaloit) Irish: dineasár m Italian: dinosauro (it) m Japanese: 恐竜 (ja) (きょうりゅう, kyōryū) Kazakh: динозавр (kk) (dinozavr) Khmer: ឌីណូស័រ (diinousɔə) Korean: 공룡(恐龍) (ko) (gongnyong) Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: dînozor (ku) Kyrgyz: динозавр (dinozavr) Lao: ໄດໂນເສົາ (lo) (dai nō sao) Latin: dinosaurus m Latvian: dinozaurs m Lithuanian: dinozauras m Macedonian: диноса́урус m (dinosáurus) Malay: dinosaur (ms) Manx: jeeneysoar m Maori: mokotuauri Mongolian: Cyrillic: үлэг гүрвэл (üleg gürvel) (official), динозавр (mn) (dinozavr) (common), аврага гүрвэл (avraga gürvel) (China) Mongolian: ᠦᠯᠭᠡ ᠭᠦᠷᠪᠡᠯ (ülge gürbel), ᠋ᠳ᠋ᠢᠨᠣᠽᠠᠧᠷ (dinozaēr), ᠠᠪᠤᠷᠭᠤ ᠭᠦᠷᠪᠡᠯ (aburɣu gürbel) Navajo: naayééʼ Nepali: डायनोसर (ḍāyanosar) Norman: dinnosaure m Norwegian: dinosaur (no) m, dinosaurus m Occitan: dinosaure (oc) m Pashto: ډانگسر‎ (ps) m Persian: دایناسور‎ (fa) (dâynâsor) Polish: dinozaur (pl) m Portuguese: dinossauro (pt) m Punjabi: ਡਾਈਨੋਸੌਰ (ḍāīnosaur) Romanian: dinozaur (ro) m Russian: диноза́вр (ru) m (dinozávr) Samoan: tainasoa Scottish Gaelic: daidhneasar m, dìneasar m Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: диносаурус m, диносаур m Roman: dinosaurus m, dinosaur (sh) m Slovak: dinosaurus (sk) m Slovene: dinozaver (sl) m Spanish: dinosaurio (es) m Swedish: dinosaurie (sv) c, skräcködla (sv) c Tagalog: bayawak-kilabot, dinosawriyo Tajik: динозавр (tg) (dinozavr) Thai: ไดโนเสาร์ (th) (dai-noo-sǎo) Turkish: dinozor (tr) Turkmen: dinozawr Ukrainian: диноза́вр (uk) m (dynozávr) Urdu: ڈایناسور‎ m (ḍāynāsor) Uyghur: دىنوزاۋر‎ (dinozawr) Uzbek: dinozavr (uz) Vietnamese: khủng long (vi) (恐龍) Volapük: dinosaur (vo) Welsh: deinosor Yiddish: דינאָזאַווער‎ m (dinozaver)

old-fashioned person or thing

Chinese: Mandarin: 落伍的人 (luòwǔ de rén), 落伍的事物 (luòwǔ de shìwù) Finnish: fossiili (fi), dinosaurus (fi) French: dinosaure (fr) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Catalan: dinosaure (ca) m German: Dinosaurier (de) m, Dinosaurierin f Greek: δεινόσαυρος (el) m (deinósavros) Italian: dinosauro (it) m Persian: دایناسور‎ (fa) (dâynâsor) Polish: dinozaur (pl) m Portuguese: dinossauro (pt) c Romanian: dinozaur (ro) m Russian: диноза́вр (ru) m (dinozávr) Thai: ไดโนเสาร์ (th) (dai-noo-sǎo), ไดโนเสาร์เต่าล้านปี (th) (dai-noo-sǎo-dtào-láan-bpii) Turkish: dinozor (tr)

Further reading

• dinosaur on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• dinosaurus

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós) + σαῦρος (saûros).

Noun

dinosaur m (definite singular dinosauren, indefinite plural dinosaurer, definite plural dinosaurene)

1. a dinosaur (extinct reptile)

References

• “dinosaur” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Further reading

• dinosaur on the Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nb

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Norwegian Nynorsk

Alternative forms

• dinosaurus

Etymology

From Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós) + σαῦρος (saûros).

Noun

dinosaur m (definite singular dinosauren, indefinite plural dinosaurar, definite plural dinosaurane)

1. a dinosaur (extinct reptile)

References

• “dinosaur” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Further reading

• dinosaur on the Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia.Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

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Scots

Noun

dinosaur (plural dinosaurs)

1. a dinosaur (extinct reptile)

Further reading

• dinosaur on the Scots Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^sco

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Volapük

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [di.no.sa.ˈuɾ]

Noun

dinosaur (nominative plural dinosaurs)

1. dinosaur

Declension

declension of dinosaur

	singular	plural
nominative	dinosaur	dinosaurs
genitive	dinosaura	dinosauras
dative	dinosaure	dinosaures
accusative	dinosauri	dinosauris
vocative 1	o dinosaur!	o dinosaurs!
predicative 2	dinosauru	dinosaurus

• ¹ status as a case is disputed
• ² in later, non-classical Volapük only

Hyponyms

• dinosauril
• dinosaurül
• hidinosaur
• jidinosaur
• ledinosaur

Derived terms

Terms derived from "dinosaur"

• dinosaurabid
• dinosaurabomem
• dinosaurafamül
• dinosaurafomik
• dinosaurafösil
• dinosauragrup
• dinosaurakran
• dinosauralög
• dinosauranem
• dinosauratuvöp
• dinosaur bödöfik
• dinosaurik
• dinosaur lunasärvigik
• dinosaur mitifidöl
• dinosaur planifidöl