One of the many favorites on my weird-word list is the now-archaic term camelopard.
Pronounced “kuh-MEL-uh-pard,” it blends “camel” and “leopard.” The word is a long-ago British attempt to name a then-newly-discovered beast shaped liked the former and colored like the latter. Go ahead — try a guess. (Answer provided later.)
In the meantime, after my previous two columns on etymology, here are some cool animal-related word origins, with more to follow next week:
Alligator – Originally, this descends from the Latin lacerta, which also gave us lizard. In the case of the larger swamp reptile, the Latin root went through Spanish before entering English and somehow acquired a G in place of the C: el largato. Say that fast, and you get — alligator.
Canary – This bird-word is related to “canine,” again in a rather oddball manner: When the Canary Islands were discovered in ancient Roman times, they were reportedly overrun by wild dogs; so they got named using the Latin Canes, for dog. Green-brown birds from those isles were later brought to Europe, where domesticated descendants bear the more-familiar yellow color — along with a name from their “dog-island” origin.
The Latin canes, by the way, also gave us kennel.
Caterpillar – Female readers may be especially familiar with the word depilatory, a type of cream that removes unwanted hair; its key base, “pil,” is Latin for hair. From this comes the carpet-related meaning of pile, and perhaps also pillage, meaning to make something totally bald or barren.
But getting back to the animal-word: In a way that’s not quite clear, caterpillar literally means “hairy cat”!
Chameleon – The Greek base chamai means “on the ground.” With a softer “ch” as in the word “Channukah,” it’s related to humus (earth) and humble (low). In this rather charming way, chameleon means “ground-lion.”
And speaking of that majestic maned mammal: dandelion also comes from this. It’s a reference to how each tiny, separate, spear-shaped yellow petal resembles a lion’s tooth: “Dent de lion” (literally “tooth of the lion”) = dandelion. Strange but true!
Crocodile – Again from Greek: “krok” means a small rock, and “drilos” means worm. So crocodile = “pebble worm.” I, at first, assumed this was because of the stone-like protrusions on its hide, but apparently an early owner of these kept them lying about in his rock-garden. As for the worm part — that’s just weird.
Easel – Ass is one of those words that generally elicits an awkward giggle from youngsters, though for most of its existence it was not really indecent; after all, it does occur in Wind in the Willows, the King James Bible and the Christmas hymn “What Child Is This?” As such, it’s just another word for donkey, widely employed as a beast of burden. So yes, an easel — which also carries or holds things — is indeed related to this somewhat comical term.
Ferret – If you or any friends ever had one of these, you know its most endearing (and annoying) feature is an intractable habit of swiping random items from all over the house and hiding them elsewhere — or “ferreting” them away — only to be found weeks, months or even years later.
Ferret is related to the word furtive, meaning sneaky or secretive. Then it has the common ending “-ette” stuck on — a “diminutive suffix,” also found in such words as kitchenette, cigarette and even cassette (“little case”).
Ferret literally means “little thief.”
For the record, much of my info here is indebted to Merriam-Webster’s New Book of Word Histories (1991) and the small but excellent New American Webster Handy College Dictionary (3rd ed.), which singles out particularly interesting word origins.
A camelopard, as you probably guessed, is another name for a giraffe; it’s now obsolete, but still fun.
And one final trivia note: Since we mentioned both of those large and dangerous lizard-like reptiles from swamps, perhaps we can settle once and for all the oft-queried difference between an alligator and a crocodile: One will see you later, and the other will see you after a while.
