stegosaur

noun

stego·​saur ˈste-gə-ˌsȯr How to pronounce stegosaur (audio)
: any of a suborder (Stegosauria) of quadrupedal ornithischian herbivorous dinosaurs chiefly of the Jurassic with strongly developed dorsal plates and spikes

Examples of stegosaur in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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But the ankylosaurs outlasted the stegosaurs, thriving until an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, ending the age of dinosaurs. CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2025 Millions of years ago, bony osteoderms evolved into the famous armored plates and spines of stegosaurs and ankylosaurs, as Imma Perfetto reports for Cosmos. Margherita Bassi, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 July 2025 While every dinosaur fan has their own favorite prehistoric creature, the plant-eating stegosaurs is an extra cute option for four-legged friends. Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY, 12 Oct. 2024 New research using supercomputers to simulate moon-on-moon violence suggests that Saturn’s rings formed when two ancient moons collided around the time that stegosaurs roamed the Earth. WIRED, 24 Dec. 2023 Bashanosaurus is just the latest stegosaur discovery at the Shaximiao Formation, something that may suggest these dinosaurs originated in Asia, said study coauthor Ning Li, a researcher at the Chongqing Laboratory of Geoheritage Protection and Research. Ashley Strickland, CNN, 3 Mar. 2022

Word History

Etymology

New Latin Stegosauria, from Stegosaurus

First Known Use

1897, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of stegosaur was in 1897

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Cite this Entry

“Stegosaur.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stegosaur. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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