| 释义 |
iguana|ɪˈgwɑːnə|
Forms: 6 iuanna, iwana, 6, 9 iguano, 7 yguana, guana, wana, gwane, gwayn, 7– iguana.
[a. Sp. iguana, repr. the Carib name iwana (variously given by early writers as hiuana, igoana, iuanna, yuana).]
1. A large arboreal lizard of the West Indies and South America, Iguana tuberculata, which attains to a length of five feet or more; also, in Zoology, the name of the genus, which includes the horned iguana of San Domingo, and other species; and loosely applied to other lizards of allied genera.
1555Eden Decades 126 Foure footed beastes..named Iuannas, muche lyke vnto Crocodiles, of eyght foote length, of moste pleasaunte taste. 1600Hakluyt Voy. III. 675 Store of fish, foule, deere, and Iwanas. Ibid. 815 Iguanos which are a kinde of Serpents, with foure feete, and a long sharpe tayle. 1604E. G[rimstone] tr. D'Acosta's Hist. W. Ind. iv. xxxviii. 313 The flesh of the Yguanas is a better meate. 1607G. Percy in Purchas Pilgrimes (1625) iv. 1686 We also killed Guanas, in fashion of a Serpent, & speckled like a Toade vnder the belly. 1617Raleigh Apol. 37 [South America] hath plenty of..Tortoyses, Armadiles, Wanaes. 1630Capt. Smith Trav. & Adv. 54 Gwanes they have, which is a little harmlesse beast, like a Crokadell or Aligator, very fat and good meat. 1648Gage West Ind. xix. 143 Another kind of meat they feed much on which is called Iguana. 1796Stedman Surinam I. 147 That species which is here called the iguana, and by the Indians the wayamaca, is seldom above 3 feet long. 1841Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. 15 Iguanas, and other lizards, are found in all places. 1859Tennent Ceylon II. vii. ii. 122 The hideous but harmless iguano..moves slowly across the high-road. 1880A. R. Wallace Isl. Life ii. 27 The peculiarly American family of the iguanas is represented by two genera in Madagascar.
2. A name used in Africa for a large monitor lizard of the genus Varanus, esp. V. niloticus, the aquatic Nile monitor.
1753N. Owen Jrnl. Slave-Dealer (1930) 32 They [sc. the Bulums] eat alegators, guanas and long worms. 1801J. Barrow Acct. Trav. S. Afr. I. v. 346 None of the people with me could testify to have seen any other species of that genus [sc. crocodile] frequenting the water, except Iguanas, from six to ten feet in length. 1803T. Winterbottom Acct. Native Africans Sierra Leone I. iv. 69 Although they have several species of lizards, they use only one as an article of diet, the guana, lacerta iguana, which they esteem delicate food. 1834T. Pringle Afr. Sk. ii. vi. 210 One of the deep lagoons formed by the river, and which the [Moravian] brethren have named the Leguan's Tank, from its being frequented by numbers of the large amphibious lizard called the leguan or guana. 1875J. J. Bisset Sport & War xx. 179 Hence [sc. from under water] the ‘Iguana’, a small kind of crocodile, proceed on shore at night and take chickens from the hen-roosts. 1900H. A. Bryden Animals Afr. xv. 174 In South Africa this reptile [sc. the Nile Monitor] is often miscalled an ‘iguana’. 1947J. Stevenson-Hamilton Wild Life S. Afr. xxxv. 315 There are two large monitor lizards or leguaans of the genus Varanus found in South Africa. These are sometimes called ‘iguanas’, though the true iguanas are almost all confined to the New World, and the popular term may be merely a corruption of this name. 1964J. P. Clark Three Plays 30 They struggled like Two iguanas till outspent, they stopped.
Hence iˈguanian a., resembling an iguana, belonging to the iguana family, Iguanidæ; n., one of this family; also iˈguanid. iˈguaniform a., having the form or structure of an iguana. iˈguanoid a. and n. = iguanian.
1838Penny Cycl. XII. 441/1 Only one Iguanian belongs to Europe, the common Stellio. 1854Owen Skel. & Teeth in Circ. Sc., Organ. Nat. I. 200 In the iguanians..this synchondrosis is obliterated. 1855Mayne Expos. Lex., Iguanoides,..iguanoid. 1864Owen Power of God 46 The Iguanian lizards [are] peculiar to the Western or American hemisphere. 187819th Cent. Dec. 1048 Madagascar possesses iguanoid lizards (Hoplurus and Chalarodon). |