Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Leopard
/ˈlɛpərd/noun
A large spotted cat found across Africa and southern Asia.
The Greek roots
λέων
léōn
lion
πάρδος
párdos
panther, pard
Literally: “lion-panther”
The story of the word
Ancient naturalists took the leopard for a hybrid, the offspring of a lioness and a male πάρδος, and the compound λεόπαρδος preserves that mistake in the animal's own name. They are separate species and do not cross in the wild. πάρδος is itself a loan from Iranian, kin to Sanskrit pṛdāku. The proverb about the leopard and his spots comes from Jeremiah, and put the animal into English long before most speakers had seen one.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 13th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
chameleonLeonidaspard
In a sentence
A leopard had been taking goats from the edge of the village.
She spotted the leopard only when it moved.