sauropod
part of speech
noun (a sauropod, sauropods); adjective (sauropod dinosaurs)
meaning for a pupil
A sauropod was a huge, plant-eating dinosaur with a very long neck, a long tail, a small head and four thick legs like pillars, such as Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus and Argentinosaurus. tree →
sense in the lessons
In dinosaur lessons sauropods were the biggest animals ever to walk on land: some were longer than three buses and heavier than ten elephants. Their long necks let them reach leaves high up or sweep over a wide area without walking. They laid eggs about the size of a football. The name means «lizard foot». Phrases: «long-necked sauropods», «sauropod footprints», «a herd of sauropods».
examples
- Diplodocus was a sauropod with a whip-like tail. tree →
- Sauropods were the largest animals ever to walk on land. tree →
- We saw sauropod footprints in the rock. tree →
- A sauropod's head was tiny for its giant body. tree →
- Sauropods swallowed leaves without chewing them. tree →
- Brachiosaurus was a sauropod that could reach the treetops. tree →
note
Plural «sauropods». Say SORE-uh-pod. Trap: the blue whale (living today, in the sea) is heavier than any sauropod we know. Sauropods were not the same as the «Brontosaurus» of old books, although Brontosaurus is a sauropod name that scientists have recently brought back.
In the corpora
- Sauropod bones had air pockets inside, as birds' bones do, which made the skeleton lighter and helped breathing.
- Sauropods did not chew; they stripped leaves, swallowed them whole and let their huge gut break the plants down slowly.
- Trackways show some sauropods walked in groups, with young ones in the middle; footprints are trace fossils that show behaviour.
- Only the blue whale, which is held up by water, is heavier than the biggest sauropods.
- Lily later finds a girl at museum club who can name every sauropod (the long-necked dinosaurs).
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «sauropod» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.