Standard Lemma guide

pterosaur

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • US: /ˈtɛɹəˌsɔɹ/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.

1

noun

Meaning 1

Any flying reptile, of the extinct order †Pterosauria, including the pterodactyls.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

an extinct reptile of the Jurassic and Cretaceous having a bird-like beak and membranous wings supported by the very long fourth digit of each forelimb

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: flying reptile

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: archosaur, archosaurian, archosaurian reptile

Narrower terms: pterodactyl

History

Etymology

From ptero- + -saur, literally “wing lizard”, from Ancient Greek πτερόν (pterón, “feather, wing”) and σαῦρος (saûros, “lizard, reptile”).

Across languages

Translations

26 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: pterosaure — extinct flying reptile
  • Chinese Cantonese: 翼龍 /翼龙 — extinct flying reptile
  • Chinese Mandarin: 翼龍 /翼龙 (yìlóng) — extinct flying reptile
  • Czech: ptakoještěr — extinct flying reptile
  • Finnish: pterosaurus — extinct flying reptile
  • Finnish: siipisaurus — extinct flying reptile
  • Finnish: lentolisko — extinct flying reptile
  • French: ptérosaure — extinct flying reptile
  • German: Flugsaurier — extinct flying reptile
  • German: Pterosaurier — extinct flying reptile
  • German: Pterosaurus — extinct flying reptile
  • Greek: πτερόσαυρος (pterósavros) — extinct flying reptile
  • Italian: pterosauro — extinct flying reptile
  • Japanese: 翼竜 (yokuryū) — extinct flying reptile
  • Korean: 익룡 (ingnyong) — extinct flying reptile
  • Northern Kurdish: pterozor — extinct flying reptile
  • Polish: pterozaur — extinct flying reptile
  • Polish: jaszczur latający — extinct flying reptile
  • Portuguese: pterossauro — extinct flying reptile
  • Romanian: pterozaur — extinct flying reptile
  • Russian: птероза́вр (pterozávr) — extinct flying reptile
  • Slovak: vtákojašter — extinct flying reptile
  • Slovene: pterozaver — extinct flying reptile
  • Spanish: pterosaurio — extinct flying reptile
  • Swedish: flygödla — extinct flying reptile
  • Swedish: pterosaurie — extinct flying reptile