chameleon
nounEtymology
From Middle English camelion, from Old French cameleon, from Latin chamaeleon, from Ancient Greek χαμαιλέων (khamailéōn), from χαμαί (khamaí, “on the earth, on the ground”) + λέων (léōn, “lion”); ultimately a calque from Akkadian 𒌨𒈤𒊭𒆠 (nēšu ša qaqqari, “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 Amanda Weltman in 2003 in a paper in Physical Review Letters.
- derived from χαμαιλέων
- derived from chamaeleon
- derived from cameleon
- inherited from camelion
Definitions
A small to mid-size reptile, of the family Chamaeleonidae, and one of the best known…
A small to mid-size reptile, of the family Chamaeleonidae, and one of the best known lizard families able to change color and project its long tongue.
- Milk of chameleon was recommended as an erotic stimulant by Avicenna.
A person with inconstant behavior
A person with inconstant behavior; one able to quickly adjust to new circumstances.
- He is a political chameleon, as charming to business leaders he met privately in Aberdeen on Friday night as he has been inspiring to distressed and desperate Labour defectors in Glasgow and beyond.
A hypothetical scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction, giving it an effective…
A hypothetical scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction, giving it an effective mass that depends on its environment: the presence of other fields.
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That changes or modifies its color.
- The wall was covered with a chameleon paint.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for chameleon. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA