plesiosaur
/ˈpliːsiəsɔːɹ/ noun
Forms plesiosaurs
- noun Any of the order †Plesiosauria of extinct marine reptiles, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Synonyms
Etymology
Backformation of translingual Plesiosaurus, named by William Conybeare and Henry De la Beche in 1824 because plesiosaurs were more like a normal reptile than Ichthyosaurus, which had been found in the same rock strata a few years earlier. Surface derivation, plesio- + -saur.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One of the Plesiosauria.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “plesiosaur”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details