Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Ceratopsian
/ˌsɛrəˈtɒpsiən/noun
Any member of the group of beaked, frilled plant-eating dinosaurs that includes Triceratops and Protoceratops.
The Greek roots
κέρας
kéras
horn
ὤψ
ṓps
face, eye
Literally: “horn face”
The story of the word
Othniel Charles Marsh set up Ceratopsia in 1890 for the horned, frilled dinosaurs coming out of the American West. The face element ὤψ is the same one hiding in autopsy, seeing for yourself, and in myopia. Triceratops therefore reads as 'three-horned face', which is unusually literal for a dinosaur name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
rhinoceroskeratinautopsytriceratops
In a sentence
Every ceratopsian in the hall has a different arrangement of frill spikes.