stegosaurus

«stegosaurus» in Mova's school dictionary: A stegosaurus was a large plant-eating dinosaur with two… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a stegosaurus, stegosauruses; scientists also write Stegosaurus as a genus name)

meaning for a pupil

1) A stegosaurus was a large plant-eating dinosaur with two rows of big bony plates along its back and sharp spikes on its tail. tree →

2) The name means «roof lizard» because people once thought its plates lay flat like roof tiles. tree →

sense in the lessons

In lessons about dinosaurs and fossils, stegosaurus is a favourite example: it lived in the Jurassic period, walked on four legs, had a tiny brain for its big body, and used its spiked tail (called a thagomizer) to defend itself. It lived long before Tyrannosaurus rex, so they never met. Phrases: «a stegosaurus skeleton», «back plates», «tail spikes».

examples

• The stegosaurus had plates on its back and spikes on its tail. tree →
• Stegosaurus ate ferns and low plants. tree →
• We saw a stegosaurus skeleton at the Natural History Museum. tree →
• A stegosaurus was as long as a bus. tree →
• Its brain was surprisingly small, about the size of a dog's. tree →
• The plates may have helped it warm up or show off to other stegosauruses. tree →
• My little brother's favourite dinosaur toy is a green stegosaurus. tree →

note

Plural «stegosauruses» (sometimes «stegosauri»). As a scientific name it is written with a capital: Stegosaurus. Say STEG-uh-SORE-us. Myth: it did not have a second brain in its hip. Trap: stegosaurus and T. rex lived millions of years apart; more time separates them than separates T. rex from us.

In the corpora

• Stegosaurus lived about 150 million years ago, so more time separates Stegosaurus from T. rex than separates T. rex from us.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «stegosaurus» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.