lizard

English

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lizard

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English lesarde, lisarde, from Anglo-Norman lusard, from Old French lesard (compare French lézard), from Latin lacertus, which is of obscure origin. Displaced native Middle English aske, from Old English āþexe (> modern English ask, askard).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlɪz.əd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlɪz.ɚd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪzə(ɹ)d

Noun

lizard (plural lizards)

1. Any reptile of the order Squamata that is not a snake or an amphisbaenian, usually having four legs, external ear openings, movable eyelids and a long slender body and tail.
   • a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn of Pan”, in Mary W[ollstonecraft] Shelley, editor, Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: for John and Henry L Hunt, , published 1824, →OCLC, page 169:

     The cicale above in the lime, / And the lizards below in the grass, / Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, / Listening to my sweet pipings.

   • 1851, John Ruskin, chapter XX, in The Stones of Venice, volume I (The Foundations), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., , →OCLC, § XXX, pages 223–224:

     The forms of the serpent and lizard exhibit almost every element of beauty and horror in strange combination; […]

   • 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 22:

     Hooded rattlesnakes, horned toads, and lizards crawl in the dust and among the rocks.

2. (chiefly in attributive use) Lizard skin, the skin of these reptiles.
   • 1990 October 28, Paul Simon, “Proof”, in The Rhythm of the Saints, Warner Bros.:

     Silver bells jingling from your black lizard boots, my baby / Silver foil to trim your wedding gown

3. (colloquial) An unctuous person.
4. (colloquial) A coward.
5. (rock paper scissors) A hand forming a "D" shape with the tips of the thumb and index finger touching (a handshape resembling a lizard), that beats paper and Spock and loses to rock and scissors in rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock.
6. (in compounds) A person who idly spends time in a specified place, especially a promiscuous female.

   lounge lizard; lot lizard; beach lizard; truck stop lizard

Derived terms

Translations

Middle English

Noun

lizard

1. Alternative form of lesarde