CRETACEOUS PERIOD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Cretaceous period mean? 

• CRETACEOUS PERIOD (noun)
  The noun CRETACEOUS PERIOD has 1 sense:

1. from 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of modern insects and flowering plants

  Familiarity information: CRETACEOUS PERIOD used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CRETACEOUS PERIOD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

From 135 million to 63 million years ago; end of the age of reptiles; appearance of modern insects and flowering plants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

Cretaceous; Cretaceous period

Instance hypernyms:

geological period; period (a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed)

Holonyms ("Cretaceous period" is a part of...):

Age of Reptiles; Mesozoic; Mesozoic era (from 230 million to 63 million years ago)

 Context examples 

This time period corresponds to Earth’s Cretaceous period, the heyday of dinosaurs.

(Evidence for Young Lunar Volcanism, NASA)

They dated the fossil to the Cretaceous period, roughly 99 million years ago, the same period as Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and early mammals, sharks, and flowering plants.

(Cretaceous baby snake fossil found in Myanmar, Wikinews)

The tail dates to the Cretaceous period, about 99 million years ago.

(Scientists find dinosaur feathers preserved in amber, Wikinews)

In addition to providing new data about species evolution in sub-Saharan Africa, the results contribute to fleshing out the portrait of titanosaurians, which lived in habitats across the globe through the end of the Cretaceous period.

(Paleontologists discover new species of titanosaurian dinosaur in Tanzania, NSF)