Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Allosaurus
/ˌæləˈsɔːrəs/noun
A large two-legged predatory dinosaur of the Late Jurassic.
The Greek roots
ἄλλος
állos
other, different
σαῦρος
saûros
lizard
Literally: “different lizard”
The story of the word
Marsh named it in 1877 for its backbone, which was not built like the vertebrae he knew: the centra were hollowed out and much lighter. It became the best-known big predator of the Jurassic largely because one quarry in Utah gave up thousands of its bones, many of them from animals that had died stuck in mud. The ἄλλος in the name is the same 'other' inside allergy, a reaction other than the expected one, and allegory, saying one thing in public and meaning another.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1877
Same family
allergyallegoryallotropedinosaur
In a sentence
Allosaurus skulls flex at the joints, which suggests a bite that worked more like a hatchet than a crush.