Chamaeleon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A slow-moving lizard able to alter the color of its skin for camouflage or signaling ; an alternate spelling of the same word used in older or British texts
2. A tree-dwelling reptile with a prehensile tail and eyes that move independently, able to shift its hue ; the less common spelling of the term for this creature
3. An insect-eating lizard that adjusts its skin pigmentation to blend in with surroundings ; a historical or variant form of the name for this reptile

Etymology: The Greek name for this lizard means "lion on the ground." "Khamailéōn" joins "khamaí," meaning "on the earth," and "léōn," meaning "lion," and the image was a predator that crawls low rather than a big cat. The Greeks likely borrowed the idea from further east: the name is a calque from Akkadian "nēšu ša qaqqari," which carries the same sense of a ground-dwelling lion-like creature. The word reached English through Old French and Latin, and in Middle English it appeared as "camelion," a form that looks nothing like the Greek. Scholars in the early 18th century restored the Latin-style spelling "chamaeleon," which is why older books use it. Today's standard spelling is the shortened "chameleon." In 2003, physicists Justin Khoury and Amanda Weltman, in a paper in Physical Review Letters, borrowed the name for a hypothetical field in cosmology that changes its behaviour depending on the density of its surroundings, much as the lizard changes colour.

Synonyms: chameleon