Tuatara
//tuːəˈtɑːɹə// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A reptile, Sphenodon punctatus, native to New Zealand, that resembles a lizard and is the only surviving specimen of the order Rhynchocephalia.
"In New Zealand the dinosaurs had perished 65 million years before, as they had elsewhere on the globe; but the sphenodons or tuataras who had been their contemporaries from Jurassic times persisted, in New Zealand but nowhere else, for reasons that remain obscure."
- 2 only extant member of the order Rhynchocephalia of large spiny lizard-like diapsid reptiles of coastal islands off New Zealand wordnet
Example
More examples"In New Zealand the dinosaurs had perished 65 million years before, as they had elsewhere on the globe; but the sphenodons or tuataras who had been their contemporaries from Jurassic times persisted, in New Zealand but nowhere else, for reasons that remain obscure."
Etymology
Borrowed from Māori tuatara.
Related phrases
More for "tuatara"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.