chameleon [ME] A *lion and a giraffe feature in the history of the lizard’s name. Chameleon is derived via Latin from Greek khamaileon, from khamai ‘on the ground’ and leōn ‘lion’. So a chameleon was a ‘ground lion’. It was often spelled camelion, which sometimes got mixed up with camelopard, an old word for a giraffe. So for a time, in the 14th and 15th centuries, a camelion was also a name for the giraffe. From the 16th century people have been described as chameleons if they were fickle or continually changing their opinions.