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REPTILE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Any cold-blooded vertebrate of the class Reptilia including tortoises, turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators, crocodiles, and extinct forms
Synonyms:
reptile; reptilian
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("reptile" is a kind of...):
craniate; vertebrate (animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "reptile"):
anapsid; anapsid reptile (primitive reptile having no opening in the temporal region of the skull; all extinct except turtles)
diapsid; diapsid reptile (reptile having a pair of openings in the skull behind each eye)
Diapsida; subclass Diapsida (used in former classifications to include all living reptiles except turtles; superseded by the two subclasses Lepidosauria and Archosauria)
synapsid; synapsid reptile (extinct reptile having a single pair of lateral temporal openings in the skull)
Holonyms ("reptile" is a member of...):
class Reptilia; Reptilia (class of cold-blooded air-breathing vertebrates with completely ossified skeleton and a body usually covered with scales or horny plates; once the dominant land animals)
Context examples:
The late Alan J. Charig, then-curator of fossil reptiles, amphibians and birds at the Natural History Museum of London, was the first to study those original specimens in the 1950s.
(Scientists discover fossil of dinosaur ancestor with surprising croc-like appearance, NSF)
E. hoshinae is an occasional opportunist pathogen in humans and a pathogen in reptiles and amphibians.
(Edwardsiella hoshinae, NCI Thesaurus)
Here, said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying monster, is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The singular posterior opening of the intestinal and urinary tracts of birds, reptiles, amphibians, marsupials and monotremes.
(Cloaca, NCI Thesaurus)
Scientists had thought dinosaur eggs were more like those of modern birds than modern reptiles, but this long hatch time is far more reminiscent of monitor lizard than magpie.
(Slow-cooking dinosaur eggs may have contributed to extinction, Wikinews)
Reptiles pose a particular risk.
(Animal Diseases and Your Health, NIH)
The State Environment Secretariat (SEMA) has published a list of 331 species of amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, continental invertebrates, fish, marine invertebrates, and the so-called social interest species—those exploited by traditional communities for sustainable use or subsistence.
(Over 300 animal species threatened in Bahia, Agência Brasil)
Pterosaurs are flying reptiles.
(Brazil and China scientists unearth pterosaur eggs with preserved embryos, Agência Brasil)
As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man’s lap, and throwing the noose round the reptile’s neck he drew it from its horrid perch and, carrying it at arm’s length, threw it into the iron safe, which he closed upon it.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
An era of geological history which extends from the beginning of the Cambrian to the close of the Permian and is marked by the culmination of nearly all classes of invertebrates except the insects and in the later epochs of which seed-bearing plants, amphibians, and reptiles first appeared.
(Paleozoic, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)
