Pard

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a leopard; a mythical creature described as a large, fierce feline resembling a leopard; historically used in medieval texts to denote a spotted wild cat
2. A name once applied to the leopard, often found in old literature; a legendary beast thought to combine traits of a leopard and other big cats; a rare word historically referring to spotted predatory cats
3. Originally referring to the leopard as an animal with a spotted coat; used in medieval bestiaries to describe a creature akin to a large cat; an obsolete designation for certain wild cats characterized by their patterned fur

Etymology: The word "pard" is an old name for the leopard, and its most striking twist is that it also survives as a clipped form of "partner." Those two lives come from different roots. The leopard sense travelled from Ancient Greek "párdos" through Latin "pardus" and Old French into Middle English as "parde," and the Greek term is possibly of Iranian origin, with links to related terms in Sanskrit and Greek. The "partner" sense has nothing to do with cats. It is a shortening of "pardner," the dialect and informal form of "partner," so the same spoken shape hides two unrelated histories. Readers of older English poetry and fiction will meet the leopard sense far more often than the modern clipped one, where it sits mainly in informal American speech.

Synonyms: leopard, panther, big cat