Etymology

plesiosaur

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Today it means: Any of the order †Plesiosauria of extinct marine reptiles, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Full definition →

First used c. 1840translingual Plesiosaurus
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The story

  1. translingual · derived fromPlesiosaurus
  2. English todayplesiosaur

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.

First known use, by meaning

  • from c. 1840 Any of the order †Plesiosauria of extinct marine reptiles, from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.