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Dinosaur
//ˈdaɪnəsoɹ// noun, slang
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Any of the animals belonging to the clade Dinosauria, especially those that existed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and are now extinct.
- 2 any of numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era wordnet
- 3 Any member of the clade Dinosauria other than birds. colloquial
- 4 Any extinct reptile, not necessarily belonging to Dinosauria, that existed between about 230 million and 65 million years ago, as well as the stem-mammal Dimetrodon. proscribed
""Not a bird, my dear Roxton - not a bird." "A beast?" "No; a reptile - a dinosaur.""
- 5 Something or someone that is very old or old-fashioned, or is not willing to change and adapt. colloquial, figuratively
"[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."
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- 6 Anything no longer in common use or practice. colloquial, figuratively
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.
See also for "dinosaur"
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