thagomizer
/ˈθæɡ.ə.maɪ.zəɹ/
thagomizer noun: an arrangement of spikes found on the tails of various stegosaurs.
Noun
thagomizer (plural thagomizers)
- An arrangement of spikes found on the tails of various stegosaurs.
- Like the thagomizer of the stegosaur, the ankylosaurid tail club was probably used to smash into attackers.2001, Thomas R. Holtz with Terry Riley, The Little Giant Book of Dinosaurs, page 54
- An Allosaurus backbone had a hole in which a Stegosaurus thagomizer fitted perfectly. Over the years, many of the fossil thagomizers that have been dug up have had broken tips.2008 August 1, Gary Jeffrey, Stegosaurus: The Plated Dinosaur, Rosen Publishing Group, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 30
Forms of thagomizer
| plural | thagomizers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | thagomiser |
Origin of thagomizer
Coined by cartoonist Gary Larson in 1982. His comic strip (image on the right) shows a caveman giving a lecture illustrating this part of a dinosaur, with the caption "Now this end is called the thagomizer... after the late Thag Simmons". See -ize, -er.
Questions about thagomizer
- What does thagomizer mean?
- Thagomizer means an arrangement of spikes found on the tails of various stegosaurs.
- What part of speech is thagomizer?
- Thagomizer is a noun.
- How do you pronounce thagomizer?
- Thagomizer is pronounced /ˈθæɡ.ə.maɪ.zəɹ/.
- What is the plural of thagomizer?
- The plural of thagomizer is thagomizers.
Words near thagomizer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thagomizer (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-thagomizer.wav.
Cite this entry: “thagomizer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thagomizer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.