What does the word dinosaur mean?

The word dinosaur comes from the term dinosauria, which is a combination of the Greek words deinos and sauros. Deinos means “terrible” and sauros means “lizard” or reptile. Thus, dinosaur means “terrible lizard.” As dinosaurs are discovered, scientists generally name them after a unique body feature, after the place where the fossils of the dinosaur were found, or after a person involved in the discovery. Usually the name is made up of two Greek or Latin words, or combinations of the two. For example, the Greek and Latin combination Tyrannosaurus rex means “king of the tyrant lizards.”