Meet the camelopard
April 11th, 2021 at 10:27 pm (Animals, Vocabulary)
So… there’s a faint northern constellation called Camelopardalis. It is so named because someone thought it looked kind of like a giraffe. Which was known as a kamelopardalis, or a camel-leopard, in Greek – because come on guys, it has a long camel-like neck and it also has spots! This cracks me up! :) Words are awesome!
Surprisingly, even English-speaking folks used “camelopard” in medieval times (pr. kuh-MEH-luh-pard).
Of course then I had to wonder why we started calling it “giraffe”. Apparently “giraffe” derives from the Arabic word “zar?fah” (fast-walker). So that one’s pretty good, but not nearly as descriptive. I say, bring back the camelopard! Who’s with me?