Tyranosaurus Rex / Dinosaur

[ARSENAL]

Had it in a quiz last night - What does Tyranosaurus Rex mean? What does Dinosaur mean?

[chris99]

all dinosaur names are latin so you would have to speak latin to understand.

[sddsddean]

Dinosaur comes from modern latin dinosaurus which itself comes from the Greek deinos, meaning terrible and sauros meaning lizard. So Dinosaur means 'terrible lizard'.

Tyrannosaurus also comes from the Greek meaning 'tyrant lizard'. Rex usually means king, so I suppose you could freely translate the whole thing as 'King of the Tyrant Lizards'.

Any other views?

[kempie]

I agree with the gist of sddsddean's answer with the caveat that translating languages (ancient or modern) is not always an exact science (so to speak).

Popularly deinos does translate as terrible but could also equate to monstrous or fearfully great (or something else with a similar meaning).

[Noweia]

sddsddean is correct - 'dinosaur' means 'terrible lizard' and 'tyrannosaurus rex' means 'king of the tyrant lizards/(reptiles)'.