The corpus record

χᾰμαι-λέων

chamaileon · ὁ

chameleon, Chamaeleo vulgaris

Generated live from the audited corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Sophonias 1 · 8.45/10k
Nicomachean Ethics 1 · 0.18/10k

What it meant — LSJ

chameleon, Chamaeleo vulgaris

chameleon, Chamaeleo vulgaris, Arist. HA 503a15, Plin. HN 8.120, Lib. Or. 1.249; used as an image of changefulness, Arist. EN 1100b6, Plu. Alc. 23.

II from their leaves changing colour, pine-thistle, Atractylis gummifera, Cardopatium corymbosum

name of various plants, so called from their leaves changing colour, Thphr. HP 6.4.3, 9.12.1, 9.14.1; χ. λευκός pine-thistle, Atractylis gummifera, Dsc. 3.8; χ. μέλας, Cardopatium corymbosum, ib. 9, Plin. HN 22.47.

In the wild

χαμαιλέοντά · chamaileonta Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1100b (DIORISIS sentence 274)
χαμαιλέοντες · chamaileontes Septuaginta, Sophonias 2

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission. The etymological dictionaries (Beekes, Chantraine, Frisk) are matched incrementally.

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