LIZARD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does lizard mean? 

• LIZARD (noun)
  The noun LIZARD has 2 senses:

1. relatively long-bodied reptile with usually two pairs of legs and a tapering tail

2. a man who idles about in the lounges of hotels and bars in search of women who would support him

  Familiarity information: LIZARD used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIZARD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relatively long-bodied reptile with usually two pairs of legs and a tapering tail

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("lizard" is a kind of...):

saurian (any of various reptiles of the suborder Sauria which includes lizards; in former classifications included also the crocodiles and dinosaurs)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lizard"):

gecko (any of various small chiefly tropical and usually nocturnal insectivorous terrestrial lizards typically with immovable eyelids; completely harmless)

iguanid; iguanid lizard (lizards of the New World and Madagascar and some Pacific islands; typically having a long tail and bright throat patch in males)

worm lizard (a lizard of the genus Amphisbaena; harmless wormlike limbless lizard of warm or tropical regions having concealed eyes and ears and a short blunt tail)

night lizard (small secretive nocturnal lizard of southwestern North America and Cuba; bear live young)

scincid; scincid lizard; skink (alert agile lizard with reduced limbs and an elongated body covered with shiny scales; more dependent on moisture than most lizards; found in tropical regions worldwide)

teiid; teiid lizard (tropical New World lizard with a long tail and large rectangular scales on the belly and a long tail)

agamid; agamid lizard (a lizard of the family Agamidae)

anguid lizard (any of a small family of lizards widely distributed in warm areas; all are harmless and useful as destroyers of e.g. slugs and insects)

legless lizard (degenerate wormlike burrowing lizard of California closely related to alligator lizards)

Lanthanotus borneensis (a stout-bodied pleurodont lizard of Borneo)

venomous lizard (any of two or three large heavy-bodied lizards; only known venomous lizards)

lacertid; lacertid lizard (Old World terrestrial lizard)

chamaeleon; chameleon (lizard of Africa and Madagascar able to change skin color and having a projectile tongue)

monitor; monitor lizard; varan (any of various large tropical carnivorous lizards of Africa and Asia and Australia; fabled to warn of crocodiles)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A man who idles about in the lounges of hotels and bars in search of women who would support him

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

lizard; lounge lizard

Hypernyms ("lizard" is a kind of...):

gigolo (a man who has sex with and is supported by a woman)

 Context examples 

The biologists discovered that Savannah monitor lizards have lung structures that are a hybrid system of bird and mammal lungs.

(Following the lizard lung labyrinth, National Science Foundation)

In most four-legged animals, like lizards, the vertebrae all look and function the same.

(What makes a mammal a mammal? Our spine, say scientists, National Science Foundation)

They had slate-colored skin, which was scaled like a lizard's and shimmered where the sun shone upon it.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Scientists had thought dinosaur eggs were more like those of modern birds than modern reptiles, but this long hatch time is far more reminiscent of monitor lizard than magpie.

(Slow-cooking dinosaur eggs may have contributed to extinction, Wikinews)

The researchers concluded it was in fact a snake and not a mere legless lizard by studying the vertebrae, which were found with their ribs intact, in each part of the snake's body.

(Cretaceous baby snake fossil found in Myanmar, Wikinews)

A 39 amino acid peptide and synthetic version of exendin-4, a hormone found in the saliva of the venomous lizard Gila monster, with insulin secretagogue and antihyperglycemic activity.

(Exenatide, NCI Thesaurus)

Watching lizards.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)