DrAdequate writes:
Dinosaur does not literally mean "lizard", it literally means "dinosaur"
when the British paleontologist Richard Owen discovered the first dinosaur bones, he called them Dinosauria. The word is derived from the two Greek words deinos and sauros, meaning terrible lizard
So the fact that we still use the word 'dinosaur' to describe them means that 'terrible lizard' is infact their literal name. If that has changed, why not change the name from dinosaur to what they are now known as to save us simpletons from confusion?