plesiosaur
/ˈpliːsiəsɔːɹ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.56 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of the order †Plesiosauria of extinct marine reptiles, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Example Sentences
- ""Look!" cried Olson. "Would you look at the giraffe comin' up out o' the bottom of the say?" We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from it. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of the lower Jurassic."
- "It is the first time in Australia the head and body of an elasmosaur, a type of plesiosaur, has been found in one piece."
Etymology
Backformation of translingual Plesiosaurus, named by William Conybeare and Henry De la Beche in 1824 because plesiosaurs were more like a normal reptile than Ichthyosaurus, which had been found in the same rock strata a few years earlier. Surface derivation, plesio- + -saur.
Word Breakdown
- Prefix: plesio
- Root: Plesiosaurus
- Suffix: saur