| 释义 |
▪ I. † camelion Obs.
Also 5 camalyon.
[As a word app. the same as chameleon, but in the 14th c. taken as made up of camel + lion, and identified with camelo-pard.]
A camelopard or giraffe.[Wyclif appears to have had before him a Latin text reading cameleopardalum; this he mistook for two words, rendering cameleo ‘camelion’ (with a description identifying it with the giraffe), and pardalum ‘pardalun, that is a litil pard’. But some MSS. correct this by omitting the latter, thus taking ‘camelion’ as the translation of the whole camelopardalum: this was followed by Coverdale.] 1382Wyclif Deut. xiv. 5 Phigarg, origen, camelion [1388 camelioun], that is a beest lijk a camele in the heed, in the bodi to a paard, and in the nek to an horse, in the feet to a bugle; and pardelun, that is, a litil pard. [Vulg. tragelaphum, pygargum, orygem, camelopardalum; Douay the pygargue, the wild beefe, the cameloparde; 1611 the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.] 1387Trevisa Higden (1865) I. 159 Camelion is a flekked best in colour liche to a lupard. c1400Sowdone 1008 Wilde beestes bloode, Of Tigre, Antilope, and of Camalyon. 1535Coverdale Deut. xiv. 5 Vnicorne, Origen and Camelion.
▪ II. camelion
obs. form of chameleon. |