pterodactyl
/ˌtɛrəˈdaktɪl
/noun
1A pterosaur of the late Jurassic period, with a long slender head and neck and a very short tail.
- Family Pterodactylidae, order Pterosauria: several genera, including Pterodactylus.
- Earlier, Witmer and others had performed a similar study on fossils of the flying reptiles called pterodactyls, which are not related to Archaeopteryx.
1.1(In general use) any pterosaur.I decided on a pterodactyl, a dinosaur with a distinct advantage over most dinosaurs: the ability to fly like an eagle....
- Based on widely accepted criteria, pterodactyls and other pterosaurs are not dinosaurs.
- Birds, close cousins of pterodactyls, are believed to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs about 150 million years ago.
Origin
Early 19th century: from modern Latin Pterodactylus (genus name), from Greek pteron 'wing' + daktulos 'finger'.
helicopter from late 19th century:
The first helicopter did not appear until the 1920s, but the word had already been invented by then, first of all in French—the science fiction writer Jules Verne wrote of a helicopter in The Clipper of the Clouds (1886). The French word was based on Greek helix ‘spiral’ and pteron ‘wing’, which gave us the name of the flying reptile the pterodactyl (early 19th century).