hadrosaur
Americannoun
noun
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Any of various medium-sized to large dinosaurs of the group Hadrosauroidea of the Cretaceous Period. Hadrosaurs had a duck-like bill and a mouth containing many series of rough grinding teeth for chewing tough plants. They walked on two legs or on all fours and had hoofed feet. Many hadrosaurs bore hollow crests on their skulls. They were the last and largest ornithopod dinosaurs.
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Also called duck-billed dinosaur
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hadrosaur
< New Latin Hadrosaurus (1858) genus name, equivalent to Greek hadr ( ós ) thick, bulky + -o- -o- + saûros -saur
Vocabulary lists containing hadrosaur
Paleontology: Dinosaurs - Introductory
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Paleontology: Dinosaurs - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Another hadrosaur toe, another triceratops vertebra. Other than statistical appearance in the formation, there’s zero scientific value.”
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2023
The exact species of hadrosaur can only be pinpointed if a skull is available to examine.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 14, 2022
“At the hadrosaur site, we were digging under what we had already plastered and taken away when another volunteer and I ended up finding a rib,” she said.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 24, 2021
The chunkier pieces sticking out from the rock were dinosaur toes, obvious signals that more than one hadrosaur set its foot right into this muck before it hardened 70 million years ago.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 23, 2021
From what little is known now, it is thought to have belonged to a hadrosaur, a large duck-billed dinosaur.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
