Coined by Sereno (1997) and initially defined by Sereno (1998), Paraves is a stem-based taxon including those theropods closest to Aves. Because immediate avian outgroups may constitute some combination of deinonychosaurians or other singleton genera depending on the author and analysis, Paraves was established as a stem-based group to exclude oviraptorosaurians and more distantly related clades. The possibility that oviraptorosaurians lie within Aves, a controversial result based on two small datasets (LÜ 2002; Maryanska et al. 2002), has since been rejected by one of the lead authors (Holtz and Maryanska 2004). These same authors provided a first-order revision of the initial definition of Paraves (Sereno 1998). A textual variant of that definition is adopted in this compilation.

Eumaniraptora was coined in an abstract (Padian et al. 1997) and first defined in the abstract of a subsequent paper (Padian et al. 1999). Unlike Paraves, it is node-based and thus may eventually differ from Paraves in taxonomic content, depending on the relationships of dromaeosaurids. On most phylogenies, nevertheless, there is little need for Eumaniraptora as it would encompass the same taxa as Paraves.