Carnosaur

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A classification of robust, meat-eating dinosaurs that thrived during the Late Jurassic and Late Cretaceous, noted for their size and predatory instincts
2. This category encompasses large, carnivorous dinosaurs recognized for their muscular structure and dominance in prehistoric ecosystems from specific geological eras
3. A group of formidable, flesh-eating dinosaurs that were prominent during certain geological periods and characterized by their considerable size and powerful physical attributes

Etymology: "Carnosaur" is a compound of the Latin "carnis", meaning flesh, and the Greek "sauros", meaning lizard. The Latin element "carn-" also gives English words like carnivore and carnage, while "sauros" appears in dinosaur itself, which was coined in 1842 by Richard Owen from Greek "deinos" (terrible) and "sauros". The term was introduced in 1877 by the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, who used it to group large meat-eating dinosaurs. Cope was a prolific and combative figure in the so-called Bone Wars, the late nineteenth-century rivalry with Othniel Charles Marsh over fossil discoveries in the American West, and he coined many of the animal names of that era. The word gives a sense of the period's enthusiasm for classifying the giant predators that the fossil record was revealing.