chameleon

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kəˈmi.li.ən/, /kəˈmil.jən/^[1]

Etymology

It comes from Middle English camelion,^[2][3][4][5] from Old French caméléon,^[3][4] from Latin chamaeleon,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek χαμαιλέων (khamailéōn, “ground lion”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek χαμαί (khamaí, “on the ground”) + λέων (léōn, “lion”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} According to the AHD the Greek is a loan translation of an Akkadian phrase meaning “ground lion”, a word for a lizard.^[2] The spelling with ch-, imitating the Greek, was restored in the 18th or early 19th century.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The color-changing lizard (1340 in the OED, before 1387 in Barnhart).^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline suggests that the crest on the head of some species was thought to resemble a lion's mane.^[4] The animal was once believed to live on air.^[4] From its changes of color came the figurative sense of a changeable, fickle or inconstant person, first recorded in 1586.^[3][7][4] The name was also given to a southern constellation, added to the star lists in the early 17th century.^[4][7]

Timeline

• 1340 – the lizard.^[7]
• 1586 – an inconstant person.^[7][3]
• 1835 – the constellation (OED).^[7]
• early 1800s – the spelling chameleon (Barnhart).^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any of a family of Old World lizards able to change the color of their skin, with a prehensile tail and eyes that move independently.
2. Any of several American lizards that can change color, especially the anole.
3. A changeable, fickle or inconstant person.

Word family

• chameleonic
• chameleonlike
• American chameleon

Related words

• chamomile
• lion
• humus

Usage notes

The AHD notes that chameleon and chamomile share the Greek element khamai “on the ground”: the one is a “ground lion”, the other a “ground apple”.^[2]

References

1. [1] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. [1] [2] [3] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press