Other forms: chameleons
A chameleon is a lizard that changes colour to match its surroundings. Change like a chameleon.
The colour change is mostly about temperature and mood rather than camouflage, which is the surprise. The eyes move independently, so a chameleon can watch two things at once.
1nounchameleonA lizard that changes colour to match its surroundings.
“The chameleon went dark the moment anybody came near the glass.”
chameleon is a reptile.
Greek chamaileon means ground lion, from chamai, on the ground, plus leon, a lion.
akk
𒌨𒈤𒊭𒆠 — chameleon, reptile
Ancient Greek
χαμαιλέων
Latin
chamaeleon
Old French
cameleon
Middle English
camelion
English, today
chameleon
Built from
From Middle English camelion, from Old French cameleon, from Latin chamaeleon, from Ancient Greek χαμαιλέων, from χαμαί (“on the earth, on the ground”) + λέων (“lion”); ultimately a calque from akk 𒌨𒈤𒊭𒆠 (“chameleon, reptile”) literally “lion of the ground", "predator that crawls upon the ground”. The spelling was re-Latinized in the early 18th century. The physics sense was coined by Justin Khoury and coined by Amanda Weltman in 2003 in a paper in Physical Review Letters.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA