chameleon
Plural: chameleons
Noun
- a changeable or inconstant person
- a faint constellation in the polar region of the southern hemisphere near Apus and Mensa
- lizard of Africa and Madagascar able to change skin color and having a projectile tongue
- 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.
- A person with inconstant behavior; one able to quickly adjust to new circumstances.
- 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.
Adj
- That changes or modifies its color.
Examples
- The wall was covered with a chameleon paint.
Origin / Etymology
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 by Amanda Weltman in 2003 in a paper in Physical Review Letters.
Synonyms
chamaeleon, Chamaeleon, Zelig
Scrabble Score: 16
chameleon: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordchameleon: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
chameleon: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary