The word "dinosaur" means "terrible lizard".

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That is where the elements "dino" and "saur" come from. Words meaning "terrible" and "lizard".

I've known that for years. The name, like most names for dinosaurs, comes from Greek. Although a lot of cartoons and plush toys of dinosaurs make them out to be more cute and lovable than terrible, especially if they are herbivores. And video games too, Yoshi is probably the most non-threatening dinosaur in video games, at least until he swallows you whole and squeezes you out his butt inside an egg.

Tyrannosaurus Rex means "Tyrant Lizard King"

Triceratops means "three horned face"

Brontosaurus means "Thunder Lizard"

"Stegosaurus" means "Roof Lizard", because it was once thought that the big bony plates on a stegosaurus' back covered their body like tiles on the roof of a house.

Ummm...yes.

What about it?

Contrary to common perception, carnivorous dinosaurs were not constantly out attacking. Dinosaurs had their times when they were at peace just like all other animals.

The common perception is that a T-Rex was like a modern lion, tiger, or crocodile. A creature that a human sized animal should give a wide berth to. Sounds rather "terrible" (something that invokes terror) to me.

"Rhinoceros" means "nose horn". That fact that the later sounds like the term for a certain form of cosmetic surgery is not a coincidence. But that non coincidence didnt stop Seinfeld from getting laughs about it.

https://youtu.be/KvTAad5hT34

It's always bugged me how so many people think the plant-eating dinosaurs were always peaceful and gentle. If they were anything like rhinos, hippos, and just about any adult male member of the bovine family, then they were likely to at least have had moments of aggression.

And just look at dogs, most of them act sweet and friendly but they are still natural predators. One of the reasons dogs like playing with squeak toys is because it sounds like their prey as it's dying.

Is a term that has only been used for about a hundred years or thereabouts. Prior to this the term "Dragon" was used.

BS.

Dragons and dinosaurs are not the same thing.

Dragons are mythical creatures invented by man that never lived.

Dinosaurs were real creatures that lived on the earth for 130 million years before they became extinct 60 million years ago, except for the branch that became miniaturized and specialized for flight that became birds. And except for the birds never encountered humans.

Humans never encountered living nonavian dinosaurs, and were not aware of the extinct ones until we started recognizing their fossils in the ground in the 19th century. So there was no reason to talk about them (ie have a word for them) until that recent time.

Modern Young Earth Creationists have museums with dioramas showing cavemen and dinosaurs living side-by-side like they do in the Flintstone cartoons. Not true.

Dinosaurs are so popular. It is hard to imagine a world where people did not know about dinosaur fossils and never talked about dinosaurs.

Come on. Re-read what you put. You may want to make it polite and remove the obvious blunder. I have edited out what you put in my quote to give you a chance to rewrite it.

Its too late for me to use the edit feature now.

So...just pretend I wrote "poppycock" instead "BS". If thats the thing that bothers you.

Using “poppycock” instead of “BS” is BS.

Creation “museums” are nothing but BS. The very idea that they exist raises my blood pressure.

δεινός/deinos can also mean marvellously strong, fearfully great, astounding etc, not just terrible, while sauros/σαῦρος can mean lizard or reptile, even if they're not lizards.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mo ... s0#lexicon

these are the exact words by Richard Owens who coined the term in 1842:

"The combination of such characters ... will, it is presumed, be deemed sufficient ground for establishing a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosauria*. (*Gr. δεινός, fearfully great; σαύρος, a lizard. ... )
https://archive.org/details/reportofele ... age/n141/m

Yeah. "Terrible" can just mean "inspires awe".

Thank you. I much appreciate it.. Is more polite.

Just to say my references for the old term being "Dragon". Old Bibles and encyclopedias used to use this term before the term "Dinosaur" came in.
The Bible actually gives descriptions of three creatures, two of which has to be creatures that do not exist today. Leviathan and behemoth. So called "Biblical schollars" notes calling them crocodiles and hippobotamus are so inaccurate compared to the Biblical descriptions of these creatures one has to question if these "Biblical scholars" actually thought about what they put.
I actually believe both these to be dinosaurs, and the one that is described as fire breathing, I believe to be something like a dimetrodon or possibly a parasaurolophus? (There had been a theory that the fin on the dimetrodon had a storage use for chemicals? I don't remember the details as a scientist came out with the theory years ago. Took a while to find that dinosaur to get its name, yet when I was a child it was one of the main dinosaurs seen in books along with trisaratops, stegosaurus and trinosaurus rex. (If I have spelt them right).
While looking it up there is a new theory with the parasaurolophus that it may have been fire breathing. Fascinating subject to be honest.

Last edited by Mountain Goat on 18 Mar 2023, 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As far as I know, no organisms have ever existed in reality that were fire breathing. Fire breathing only occurs in the realm of legendary organisms.

Also the dimetridon was not really a dinosaur. The dimetridon was more closely related to mammals than to actual dinosaurs.