chameleon

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
16
Words With Friends
19
Letters
9
Pronunciation
/kəˈmi.li.ən/
See all 2 pronunciations
/kəˈmi.li.ən/ · /kəˈmil.jən/

Definition of chameleon

4 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. 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 contagious neuro-ego-disease. A virus sticking to liars. We're the self-centered fuel to boost the new strain of fire. Adapting, shifting, lacking opinion. Our numbers exceeding the billions. Everly walking among ourselves down the corridor of chameleons.”
See all 4 definitions

noun

  1. 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 contagious neuro-ego-disease. A virus sticking to liars. We're the self-centered fuel to boost the new strain of fire. Adapting, shifting, lacking opinion. Our numbers exceeding the billions. Everly walking among ourselves down the corridor of chameleons.”
  2. (figuratively)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.”
  3. 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

  1. (not-comparable)That changes or modifies its color.
    “The wall was covered with a chameleon paint.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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 Amanda Weltman in 2003 in a paper in Physical Review Letters.

Words you can make from chameleon

200+ playable · top: MANCHE (13 pts)

Best play manche 13 points

7-letter words

3 words

6-letter words

10 words

5-letter words

43 words

4-letter words

82 words

3-letter words

53 words

2-letter words

8 words

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

A single letter you can add to chameleon to make another valid word.

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