Other forms: leopards
A leopard is the spotted wild cat that drags its dinner up into a tree. A leopard's spots, a leopard in the branches, snow leopard.
Hauling a kill heavier than itself into a tree is what keeps it from lions and hyenas, and it is the reason leopards survive alongside bigger predators. The spots are rosettes, and no two are alike. A leopard cannot change its spots is biblical. Note that the name means lion-panther, from a belief the animal was a hybrid.
1nounleopardA large spotted wild cat.
“The leopard crept silently through the long grass towards the antelope.”
leopard is an animal.
Greek leopardos is leon, a lion, plus pardos, a panther — from a belief that the animal was a hybrid of the two.
Ancient Greek
λεόπαρδος — leopon, lipard
Latin
leopardus — leopon, lipard
Old French
leopard — leopard
Middle English
leopard
English, today
leopard
Built from
From Middle English leopard, leopart, lepard, leperd, from Old French leopard (“leopard”), from Latin leopardus (“leopon, lipard”) from late Ancient Greek λεόπαρδος (“leopon, lipard”), from λέων (“lion”) + πάρδος (“pard, male leopard”), from earlier πάρδαλις (“leopard”), probably from an unattested peo term ancestral to pal, xco, sog, ps پړانګ (pṛāng). Compare Persian پلنگ and Sanskrit पृदाकु (“panther”). late 13th c. (early 13th c. as a surname).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA