Obs. Also 5 camalyon. [As a word app. the same as CHAMELEON, but in the 14th c. taken as made up of camel + lion, and identified with camelo-pard.] A camelopard or giraffe.
1382. Wyclif, Deut. xiv. 5. Phigarg, origen, camelion [1388 camelioun], that is a beest lijk a camele in the heed, in the bodi to a paard, and in the nek to an horse, in the feet to a bugle; and pardelun, that is, a litil pard. [Vulg. tragelaphum, pygargum, orygem, camelopardalum; Douay the pygargue, the wild beefe, the cameloparde; 1611 the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.]
1387. Trevisa, Higden (1865), I. 159. Camelion is a flekked best in colour liche to a lupard.
c. 1400. Sowdone, 1008. Wilde beestes bloode, Of Tigre, Antilope, and of Camalyon.
1535. Coverdale, Deut. xiv. 5. Vnicorne, Origen and Camelion.
[Wyclif appears to have had before him a Latin text reading cameleopardalum; this he mistook for two words, rendering cameleo ‘camelion’ (with a description identifying it with the giraffe), and pardalum ‘pardalun, that is a litil pard.’ But some MSS. correct this by omitting the latter, thus taking ‘camelion’ as the translation of the whole camelopardalum: this was followed by Coverdale.]
