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I'm honestly not sure if this belongs more on Mythology.SE, but I think it's (just) more of an etymology question.

The English word 'giraffe' derives from the Arabic word zarāfah (زرافة) which translates as "fast-walker", via the French girafe, and is first recorded in English in about 1600. Before that, the now archaic name camelopard was used. Wikipedia asserts that this is a portmanteau of "camel" and "leopard", but I'm not sure why an equally (if not more) likely explanation is that it's a portmanteau of "camel" and "pard", a pard being (as I'm sure we all know) a mythical spotted African animal that hybridises with lions to form "leo-pards" (as helpfully explained in Pliny the Elder's book "Natural History", chapter 17: "Lions: How they are Produced").

What evidence is there for each of these explanations? And whichever is true, has it ever been meant to imply that giraffes are literally hybrids?

(I still have some sources to follow up so I may be able to answer this myself eventually, but I also thought the story so far was odd enough to share in the form of a question.)

arboviral
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    Related: Why “Giraffe” as a name for the animal? – Mari-Lou A Oct 13 '20 at 21:49
  • Huh, was about to add this myself but the preview in the suggestion box didn't go as far as the camelopard discussion; it's even closer than I thought from the first part. Thanks! – arboviral Oct 13 '20 at 21:52
  • "Camelopard, sometimes spelled cameleopard, is the more traditional English expression for a giraffe. It comes from Greek kamēlopárdalis, derived from kámēlos “camel” and párdalis “leopard”, and was common until the late 19th century." – Decapitated Soul Oct 14 '20 at 02:35
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    Is "párdalis" a leopard or a pard, though? For most of the time it was used "pard" did not refer to a leopard; it was a mythical spotted animal that Pliny the Elder claimed fathered leopards with female lions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pard – arboviral Oct 14 '20 at 06:30
  • The problem is that (if I've understood correctly) the term was later equated to leopard, once the biology was better understood. – arboviral Oct 14 '20 at 06:32

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