זִקִּית (zikit) — chameleon
Etymology
The search for a Hebrew name for the color-changing lizard known in European languages as "chameleon" (from Greek χαμαιλέων, "ground lion") began in the early Haskalah period. The first attempt was by Barukh Linda, who in his 1788 book "Reshit Limudim" simply borrowed the biblical word עַקְרָב (scorpion). This was quickly rejected: the word clearly belongs to the clawed, stinging creature in all Semitic sister languages, including Arabic.
The Bible offers a list of impure reptiles in Leviticus 11:30, one of which — כֹּחַ — the earliest Greek translation (the Septuagint) rendered as "chameleon" (χαμαιλέων), and Jerome followed suit in the Latin Vulgate. This led some 19th-century Hebrew writers to use כֹּחַ for the chameleon. But the rabbinic tradition pointed elsewhere: Saadia Gaon (10th century) identified כֹּחַ as a different lizard (still called חַרְדּוֹן in modern Hebrew), and Rashi identified the related reptile חֹמֶט as "snail" — a reading that stuck in Ashkenazic tradition. Other candidates (תִּנְשֶׁמֶת, כְּרוֹם) were also proposed but none gained lasting traction.
The decisive source turned out to be an obscure Talmudic story. In Sanhedrin 108b, the text attributes to Shem son of Noah a description of a creature called זַקִּיתָא that Noah kept on the ark and could not figure out how to feed, until a worm fell from a pomegranate and was eaten. The Talmudic commentators could not identify this creature. In 1841, the scholar Yosef Sheinhak boldly proposed in "Toldot ha-Aretz" that the זַקִּיתָא was a chameleon: the name derives from the Aramaic זִקָּא, which in one place (Targum to Job 16:3) translates the Hebrew רוּחַ ("wind/spirit"), and ancient tradition — repeated from Ovid to Shakespeare — held that chameleons feed on air. The argument is tenuous, but lexicographers Moses Schulbaum (1880) and Marcus Jastrow (1903) echoed it. Yehuda Gur and Yosef Klausner then derived the clean Hebrew form זִקִּית from this Aramaic root and placed it in their 1903 pocket dictionary. From there it spread through bilingual dictionaries (Abraham Kahana's Russian-Hebrew dictionary, 1907) into general use, becoming the standard modern Hebrew word.
Key Quotes
"...שכח (קאמעלעאן) הזה המחליף את צבעיו לפי חושיו בו, כן גם רוח הפקיד ומראשו יתחלפו עשרת מונים בכל יום..." — Yehuda Felix, Havazellet, 1888 (using כח for chameleon)
"בולע אני אוויר כמו זיקית" — Hamlet (in T. Carmi's Hebrew translation)
Timeline
- 1788: Barukh Linda proposes עקרב for "chameleon" — rejected
- 1840: Julius Fürst proposes תנשמת (based on the legend that chameleons eat air)
- 1841: Yosef Sheinhak proposes that the Talmudic זַקִּיתָא is a chameleon
- 1863: Student Shlomo Mundeliker proposes כרום for chameleon in Ha-Carmel; later repurposed for hummingbird
- 1880: Lexicographer Moses Schulbaum repeats the זַקִּיתָא identification
- 1888: Yehuda Felix uses כח for chameleon in Havazellet
- 1903: Gur and Klausner coin זִקִּית in their pocket dictionary
- 1907: Abraham Kahana's Russian-Hebrew dictionary spreads the word
- 20th century: זִקִּית becomes the universal standard Hebrew term for chameleon
Related Words
- חַרְדּוֹן — a different lizard (from Arabic ḫirdawn); Saadia Gaon's identification for biblical כֹּחַ
- לְטָאָה — lizard (generic biblical term, Leviticus 11:30)
- זִקָּא — Aramaic: spark, spirit; occasionally used for "wind"; etymological source of זִקִּית
- זַקִּיתָא — the Talmudic creature on Noah's ark; the immediate basis for the coinage
- כֹּחַ — biblical impure reptile (Leviticus 11:30); identified as chameleon by Septuagint