Ankylosaurus
//ˌæŋkəloʊˈsɔːɹəs// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Ankylosaurus magniventris, a large herbivorous dinosaur of the Cretaceous period notable for its heavy armor and clublike tail.
- 2 having the back covered with thick bony plates; thought to have walked with a sprawling gait resembling a lizard's wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsEtymology
From translingual Ankylosaurus, from ankylo- + -saurus, from Ancient Greek ἀγκύλος (ankúlos, “crooked”) + New Latin -saurus, from Ancient Greek σαῦρος (saûros, “lizard”). The word was coined in 1908 without explanation by Barnum Brown and may refer to his mistaken belief that its back was sharply bent in a manner similar to the stegosaurus or to his attention to the fusion of his specimens' rear ribs to their vertebrae, a condition medically known as ankylosis.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.