Obs. Also tarandule, and in L. forms tarandus, -andrus. [a. F. tarande, obs. tarandre, ad. med.L. tarand-us, L. tarandr-us (Pliny), name of a northern beast, supposed to be the reindeer.] A name given to some northern quadruped, at length identified with the reindeer.
1572. Bossewell, Armorie, II. 57. The fielde is of the Topaze, a Tarandre tripping, Rubye, unguled Diamonde. Tarandrus is a beaste in bodye like a great Oxe, hauing an head like to an harte, and hornes full of branches. Ibid., III. 22 b. The Tarandule is a beaste commonly called a Buffe, which is like An Oxe, but that he hath a bearde like a Goate.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 559. The Tarandus is a Beast somewhat resembling an Oxe, in quantitie, a Hart in shape.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Tarandus, in zoology, a name given by Agricola and some other authors, to the rein-deer.
b. Said to have, like the chameleon, the power to ‘change himselfe into the thing he toucheth or leaneth vnto’ (Florio); so Rabelais IV. ii. Also fig.
It is not certain that tarand (applied scurrilously to Christ) in quot. c. 1440, is the same word.
c. 1440. York Myst., xxxiii. 381 (iii Miles). All þin yntrew techyngis þus taste I, þou tarand.
1642. R. Carpenter, Experience, II. xi. 218. Like the Tarrand, which walking in a Garden, represents the colour of every flower on his skin.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. ii. 1.
1702. Eng. Theophrast., 363. As the tarand changes its colour with every plant that it approaches so the wise man adapts himself to the several humours and inclinations of those he converses with.
