chameleon
/kəˈmi.li.ən/noun, adjective
chameleon is spelled C-H-A-M-E-L-E-O-N. The wrong spelling people search most is cameleon: about 410 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 29 of all searches for the word. Chameleon is a noun meaning “A small to mid-size reptile, of the family Chamaeleonidae, and one of the best known lizard families able to…”. The plural of chameleon is chameleons.
How many letters and syllables are in chameleon?
| Letters | 9: C-H-A-M-E-L-E-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.3 times per million words; the 25,367th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, cameleon, about 410 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell chameleon?
Chameleon is spelled C-H-A-M-E-L-E-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 30 of the searches for chameleon in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is chameleon?
Chameleon appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,367th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce chameleon?
- /kəˈmi.li.ən/
- /kəˈmil.jən/
Chameleon has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Aquild-chameleon.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-chameleon.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of chameleon
- chameleons plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does chameleon mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A small to mid-size reptile, of the family Chamaeleonidae, and one of the best known lizard families able to change color and project its long tongue.
- 2
A person with inconstant behavior; one able to quickly adjust to new circumstances.
- 3
A hypothetical scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction, giving it an effective mass that depends on its environment: the presence of other fields.
adjective
- 1
That changes or modifies its color.
The wall was covered with a chameleon paint.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Chameleon in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense reptile:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does chameleon come from?
From Middle English camelion, from Old French cameleon, from Latin chamaeleon, from Ancient Greek χαμαιλέων (khamailéōn), from χαμαί (khamaí, “on the earth, on the ground”) + λέων (léōn, “lion”); ultimately a calque from Akkadian 𒌨𒈤𒊭𒆠 (nēšu ša qaqqari, “chameleon, reptile”, literally “lion of the ground", "predator that crawls upon the ground”). The spelling was re-Latinized in the early 18th century. The physics sense was coined by Justin Khoury and Amanda Weltman in 2003 in a paper in Physical Review Letters.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).