Velociraptor

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /vəˌlɒsɪˈɹæptɚ/

Definitions

1. A small but swift dinosaur known for its agility, predatory nature, and exceptional hunting skills that existed during the Late Cretaceous A nimble carnivorous dinosaur distinguished by its feathers, intelligence, and sharp talons, thriving millions of years in ancient environments An agile and intelligent theropod dinosaur famous for its speed, complex social behaviors, and being a skilled predator in prehistoric ecosystems
2. A small, swift theropod dinosaur with notable agility and hunting prowess, recognized for its sharp claws and believed to have been feathered during its existence
3. A fast-moving dinosaur species characterized by its sharp claws and keen hunting abilities from the Late Cretaceous period

Etymology: The name was coined in 1924 by Henry Fairfield Osborn, the American paleontologist who ran the American Museum of Natural History, for a fossil skull and partial skeleton collected in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Osborn built it from Latin: "vēlōx" meaning "swift" and "raptor" meaning "thief" or "plunderer," a term that in Latin had come to mean a robber. The result reads as "swift robber," a fitting label for an animal that the fossils suggest was a fast, agile hunter. For decades the name belonged to a single small dinosaur. The word's modern fame comes from a later mix-up. In 1988, the illustrator and palaeontologist Gregory S. Paul argued that a different predator, Deinonychus, was in fact the same genus as Velociraptor. That proposal was not generally accepted by specialists, but it was adopted by the novel and film Jurassic Park, where the animals shown as "velociraptors" are much larger and based on Deinonychus rather than the true Velociraptor.