leopard
Pluralleopards
- 1A large wild cat, Panthera pardus, with a spotted coat, native to Africa and Asia, especially the male, in contrast to the female leopardess.
The leopard stalked silently through the tall grass before pouncing on the impala.
Conservationists tracked several leopards across the reserve using hidden camera traps.
Similarpanther
Note
The name is a compound of two cats. Late Greek leópardos joins léōn, "lion", to párdos, "pard", and the word reached English through Late Latin leopardus and Old French leopard. In strict use it names the male, with leopardess for the female, but it readily covers both, as when people speak of leopard skins or of tracking leopards across a reserve.
- 2The snow leopard, Panthera uncia, a large wild cat with pale, dark-spotted fur native to the high mountains of Central and South Asia.
Researchers rarely glimpse the leopard in its remote, high-altitude Himalayan habitat.
Few predators are as well camouflaged across rocky alpine slopes as the leopard.
Note
Unlike the clouded leopard, this cat shares a genus with the true leopard. Panthera uncia sits beside Panthera pardus, though as a separate species. Bare leopard for it is still a clipping of snow leopard, and it works only where the context, such as a mountain survey, has already named the animal.
- 3Either of two Asian wild cats, Neofelis nebulosa and Neofelis diardi, better known as clouded leopards.
A leopard slipped through the dense canopy, its cloud-blotched coat dissolving into shadow.
The leopard's unusually long canines are striking for a cat of its modest size.
Note
Bare leopard for this cat is a shortening of clouded leopard, and only context makes it clear. The scientific names show the distance: these two Asian cats sit in Neofelis, a different genus from Panthera, so the shared name reflects the loose, look-alike use rather than kinship. When the species matters, write the full name.
- 4Any of various large wild cats that resemble Panthera pardus and take their name from it, although they belong to different species.
European naturalists once lumped several distinct Asian cats together as leopards.
A traveler in the tropics might label any large, spotted predator a leopard on sight.
Note
Here the name follows looks rather than lineage, passing to other big cats because they resemble the true leopard. Eric Dinerstein's Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations (2005) can speak of "the three leopards—clouded, common, and snow" in one breath. In careful writing, keep the qualifier, as in clouded leopard or snow leopard, so that plain leopard stays with Panthera pardus.
- 5Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Phalanta, marked with black on an orange ground.
The leopard basked on a sunlit leaf, wings spread to show its black-flecked orange.
In the wet season, leopards gather along the damp riverbank to sip moisture.
- 6In heraldry, a lion depicted passant guardant: that is, walking with one forepaw raised and its head turned to face the viewer.
The blazon called for a single leopard on a field of azure.
England's medieval kings bore three leopards on their arms.
Note
Heraldry names beasts by posture as well as by kind, so a lion in this walking, full-faced pose is blazoned a leopard. Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin's The Observer's Book of Heraldry (1968) poses the puzzle neatly ("When is a leopard not a leopard?") and notes a theory that lion and leopard were one creature, named by attitude. In a blazon, read leopard as a lion's pose, not a spotted cat.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of leopard apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
The word passed through Middle English and Old French leopard from Late Latin leopardus, itself from late Ancient Greek leópardos, a compound of léōn ('lion') and párdos ('pard, male leopard'). The 'pard' element traces back to párdalis, probably from an unattested Old Persian term related to Middle Persian palang and Pashto pṛāng.