What does "nodosaur" mean?

Synonym of nodosaurus, Nodosaurus textilis, an ankylosaurian dinosaur of the Cretaceous period lacking a clublike tail.

Nodosaur

Common synonyms include: any member of the family †nodosauridae, nodosaurid, nodosaurus, nodosaurus textilis.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Synonym of nodosaurus, Nodosaurus textilis, an ankylosaurian dinosaur of the Cretaceous period lacking a clublike tail.
"Nodosaurs are ankylosaurid dinosaurs: armoured herbivorous reptiles that look like the love-child of a rhino and an army tank."
2
Synonym of nodosaurid, any member of the family †Nodosauridae.

"An almost perfectly preserved nodosaur fossil was discovered in the Albertan badlands."

Clipping of nodosaurus, from translingual Nodosaurus, from New Latin, from Latin nodosus (“knobby, knotted”) + -saurus, equivalent to nodo- + -saur.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.