Tyrannosaurus regina

English

Etymology

By replacing rex (Latin rēx (“king”)) of Tyrannosaurus rex with Latin rēgīna (“queen”).

Noun

Tyrannosaurus regina

1. (often humorous and figurative) A female Tyrannosaurus rex.
   • 1965 January 22, “Time Listings”, in Time: The Weekly Newsmagazine, volume 85, number 4, page 2:

     In olden days man fought Tyrannosaurus rex; nowadays he battles Tyrannosaurus regina—his wife.

   • 1971, Bruce McAllister, Humanity Prime, Borgo Press / Wildside Press, page 54:

     You have scaly tail which helps you to stand up—like a tripod, like Tyrannosaura regina, but you are much smaller than she is.

   • 1971 April 29, Kathleen Bowman, “Thunk! A monster is born: Little fingers fashion a Tyrannosaurus rex”, in Enquirer and News, Battle Creek, Mich., page A-12:

     It’s Tyrannosaurus rex, the largest flesh-eating animal that ever thunked across the earth. […] It’s made of chicken wire, plastic and rags dipped in gooey glue. […] Meanwhile, he is in the school, probably looking for a Tyrannosaurus regina.

   • 1978, Evan Zimroth, Giselle Considers Her Future, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, →ISBN, page 45:

     […] in adolescence the developing dinosaur is entrusted to Miss Tyrannosaurus Regina whose long life and virginity ensure her authority: […]

   • 1981 December 23, [Jill Tweedie], “All I ask, Mary, is when you visit, throw me a cream bun, OK: Letters from a fainthearted feminist”, in The Guardian, London, Manchester, page 8:

     A survey published last week found that only five per cent of the men in the entire labour force have wives who don’t work. After I’d read that, I stood in front of the mirror. And there she was, outlined in the twilight, a rare glimpse of a large mammalian female on the verge of extinction. Too big in the body, too little in the head, Tyrannosaurus Regina. We shall not see her ilk again.

   • 1982 July 21, Alan Coren, “A Short History”, in Punch, volume 283, number 7392, page 77:

     For 99.9% of the Cretaceous week, tyrannosaurus rex would kill anything that moved, eat anything that didn’t, break up the landscape, laugh at its own lousy jokes, belch, scratch, snore, pull the hairs out of its nostrils, and go to lodge meetings. In the five hebdomadal minutes remaining (usually on Saturday night), it would suddenly leap on tyrannosaurus regina with terrible ineptitude.

   • 1983 April 3, Eleanor Ringel, “Papa makes write choice”, in The Atlanta Journal □ The Atlanta Constitution, page 1-H:

     Her [Sandra Weintraub’s] next project is a remake of “The Lost World,” the classic about a hidden valley where dinosaurs still exist. Maybe she’ll make the Tyrannosaurus Rex into a Tyrannosaurus Regina.

   • 1984, Country Life, page 1096:

     […] was restored Tyrannosaurus regina.

   • 1985 November 7, Pete McMartin, “It’s tough being top people”, in The Sun, volume 99, number 306, Vancouver, B.C., page five:

     “As for the relationship between my mother-in-law and us. The gentlemen of the press have speculated that the Queen — or Tyrannosaurus Regina, as we affectionately call her sometimes . . .”

   • 1987, Maureen Lipman, Something To Fall Back On, Robson Books, →ISBN, page 185:

     All that image-building and reputation-slaying in the name of democracy, and at the end of it another four years in opposition to the Tory Tyrannosaurus Regina.

   • 1989, Magistra Batrix/Magus Coyote, “Brag of the Female SubGenius”, in The Stark Fist of Removal, volume 17, No. 41 & 42, The SubGenius Foundation, Inc., pages 44–45:

     When I bat my eyelashes, monks spew away their last chances at Heaven! Nuns and junkies give up their habits for me! I drove the Whore of Babylon out of business! Astarte invented aphrodisiacs just to keep up with me! I am a mink in heat, I am a Tyrannosaurus Regina on the make, I make Jaws look like a Small-Mouthed Bass!

   • 1990, Robert Newton Peck, Soup’s Hoop, Delacorte Press, →ISBN, page 6:

     Yet there we were, helplessly and snugly surrounded by Soup’s hoop, with an old rope snaking upward, ending in the clenched fists of the meanest kid in our solar system . . . Janice Riker, the inhuman replica of Tyrannosaurus Regina.

   • 1991 March 23, Fern Brooks, “Marlo Thomas ‘Princess of Pain’: Former servant takes his revenge on glamor family”, in Calgary Herald, page E10:

     Does the disgruntled majordomo have nothing nice to say about this tyrannosaurus regina?

   • 1993 October 14, Olivia W Lockerbie, “Finlay isn’t a mole, he’s an albatross!”, in The Galloway News, page 9:

     Did you notice how when Tyrannosaurus Regina Thatcher, armed with her memoirs, began to stalk Calamity John Major through the political jungle, not only did they wheel out ‘Tarzan’ Heseltine to come to his aid but also the Conservative answer to Mills and Boon — Lord Jeffrey Archer?

   • 1993 December 26, Jay Stone, “1993: Everything that could go wrong …”, in The Ottawa Citizen, page F1:

     When we went to the movies, we saw one of two things: dinosaurs, or a film in which women dressed as men or men dressed as women. In short, it was the year of Tyrannosaurus Regina.

   • 1995, Richard Peck, Lost in Cyberspace, Puffin Books, published 1997, →ISBN, page 15:

     A snaky neck coiled, and it was coming down at us, and it was all teeth. “Tyrannosaurus Regina,” Aaron whispered. “Cretaceous period. Meat-eater.”

   • 1996, Carole Nelson Douglas, Cat in a Diamond Dazzle: A Midnight Louie Mystery, New York, N.Y.: Forge, →ISBN, page 76:

     Unfortunately, we used to have several candidates for that crown in the early days, and a few such dinosaurs survive. Romance Queens of the genus Tyrannosaurus Regina. But most romance writers are as everyday as Hamburger Helper: hard-working women—and a few brave men—who labor in obscurity to earn five figures, all of them with no more personal pizzazz or prima donna temperament than a sponge mop.

   • 1997 October 17, “Sue T-Rex: Not just another pretty face”, in South Bend Tribune, 125th year, number 223, page A10:

     Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex (Regina?) is coming soon to a museum near you.

   • 1998, Peter Preston, 51st State, Viking, →ISBN, page 209:

     ‘Of course,’ Rupert told the Sunday dragon lady on the World at One, Thelma the Tyrannosaurus Regina as they called her in the English Broadcasting Corporation.

   • 1998 June 13, Simon Hughes, “Week’s End”, in The Age, page 28:

     AS QUEENSLAND voters approach the ballot boxes like so many stegosaurus heading for the watering hole, the tyrannosaurus regina of Australian politics, Ms Pauline Hanson, has revealed her arts policy to the nation.

   • 2004 March 14, Karla DeLuca, “The ‘Terminator’ wore a dress in 7th grade”, in The Marshall News Messenger, volume 127, number 288, page 2A:

     When one of the popular, rich girls got called out during lunch, it signaled we were all in trouble — rich and popular, average and smart, geeky and just plain invisible — all of us were suitable prey for the roving band of Tyrannosaurus Reginas.

   • 2005, Joshua David Bellin, Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation, Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, →ISBN, page 107:

     The biogenetically engineered Tyrannosaurus regina of Jurassic Park (1993) was only the most eagerly awaited and attended of a slew of monstrous women who ruled the nation’s movie screens in the 1980s and 1990s. The two decades brought forth dozens like her: the rapacious queen of Aliens (1986), the scheming sea-witch Ursula of The Little Mermaid (1989), […]

   • 2005, New Scientist, page 9:

     WAS it Tyrannosaurus rex or Tyrannosaurus regina? Until now, telling the tyrant-lizard kings from their queens has been pure guesswork. But the discovery of an unusual type of bone in a T. rex femur […]

   • 2005 July, Jonathan Reed-Stuart, Cybersaur! The Adventures of Chloe & George, the Internet Dinosaur, volume I, →ISBN, page 105:

     “Meaning what?” sniffled the dinosaur snottily into the fluffy white mantle of her nice, big, thick fur coat with purple bits all over it. “Well, meaning you’re one better than just a silly old t rex; you’re a tyrannosaurus regina!”

   • 2006, Steven Utley, Howard Waldrop, “Crab”, in Deborah Layne, Jay Lake, editors, Polyphony, volume 6, Wheatland Press, →ISBN, page 134:

     Just short of the overturned vehicle, Tyrannosaurus rex stopped and sniffed the air, suspecting a trap—food was not supposed to give up quite so easily as this. Tyrannosaurus regina, however, was less fearful. She charged as the driver clambered up out of the capsized yellow hulk, slid to the ground, and fled across the field toward the crest of the knoll.

   • 2009 July 1, Carrie Rickey, “‘Ice Age’ franchise: Melting, melting …”, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, 181st year, number 31, page E4:

     The film’s [Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs] plot, if one can call it that, involves the return of the Tyrannosaurus Regina to reclaim her hatchlings and take Sid to a lush, tropical underworld so different from Sid’s familiar icy territory.

   • 2011, Michael Gross, Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles, New York, N.Y.: Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 481:

     He described Lynda as a spoiled and lethal “Tyrannosaurus Regina” with a red rictus smile and a “death-lizard voice,” alternately screaming at him and utterly dependent on the veneer of class she thought he gave them despite his towering ineptitude as a butler.

   • 2017, Simon Albert Craig Seamount, Gothiniad, →ISBN, page 267:

     Wake up from your history dream of echoing terror screams and share your song name with these lost children so I open my eyes to see Her glowing face and her sweet song rings my heart so alive I leap and twirl and somersault clapping my hands in drumming rhythm on tingling spine handsprings of hope to catch up with angels running swift in fluttering robes through tangled forests of grumbling oaks as we dodge dinosaur legs through endless halls of Jewel Cathedral where Tyrannosaurus Regina Demon Queen sits on Lotus Disk that twirls petal propellers to soar among stars over our small world.

   • 2018, Ruth Hamilton, For the Love of Liverpool, Pan Books, published 2019, →ISBN:

     In her mind, she’s Tyrannosaurus regina crossed with a medieval witch.