Word.ws English Dictionary

diatryma

diatryma noun: a big-beaked prehistoric bird in the genus Gastornis, larger than the ostrich, believed to have become extinct 15- to 25-million years ago due to a vast climate change.

diatryma: a big-beaked prehistoric bird in the genus Gastornis, larger than the ostrich, believed to have...
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

diatryma (plural diatrymas)

  1. A big-beaked prehistoric bird in the genus Gastornis, larger than the ostrich, believed to have become extinct 15- to 25-million years ago due to a vast climate change.

Forms of diatryma

pluraldiatrymas

Origin of diatryma

From taxonomic name †Diatryma, a former name for the genus, from Ancient Greek διατρήμα (diatrḗma, “canoe”).

Questions about diatryma

What does diatryma mean?
Diatryma means a big-beaked prehistoric bird in the genus Gastornis, larger than the ostrich, believed to have become extinct 15- to 25-million years ago due to a vast climate change.
What part of speech is diatryma?
Diatryma is a noun.
What is the plural of diatryma?
The plural of diatryma is diatrymas.

Words near diatryma in the dictionary

  1. diatrons
  2. diatropic
  3. diatropically
  4. diatropism
  5. diatropisms
  6. diatryma
  7. diatrymas
  8. diatrypaceous
  9. diattenuation
  10. diatyposes
  11. diatyposis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: diatryma (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “diatryma.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/diatryma. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.