Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several large herbivorous lizards of the genus Sauromalus of the southwest United States and Mexico, especially S. ater.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A local name for Sauromalus ator, a large, dark-colored lizard, belonging to the iguana family and inhabiting the desert regious of southern California, Utah, and Nevada, and portions of Arizona and New Mexico.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A lizard, of the genus Sauromalus, living in arid regions of the Southwestern United States.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a herbivorous lizard that lives among rocks in the arid parts of southwestern United States and Mexico

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[American Spanish chacahuala, from Cahuilla tcáxxwal.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Spanish chacahuala, from either Shoshone tcaxxwal or Cahuilla cháxwal.

Support

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Examples

  • Case knew the cove because it was the landing point for Cañon de las Palmas, a site of his long-term chuckwalla work.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • Case knew the cove because it was the landing point for Cañon de las Palmas, a site of his long-term chuckwalla work.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • Summer temperatures routinely soar above 120 degrees, and unless you are a chuckwalla lizard, your discomfort at any time of year will likely range from mildly overheated to thoroughly scorched.

    Living It Up in Death Valley Christina Binkley 2011

  • The many reptiles include the common chuckwalla, Texas horned lizard, desert spiny lizard, and various species of rattlesnakes.

    Chihuahuan Semidesert Province (Bailey) 2009

  • He has surveyed the chuckwalla population here every summer for twelve years.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • He has been afloat for three days at a stretch, unable to land safely on any of those rocky islands, trapped on the boat, using a bucket for his latrine, running short of gas, putting life jackets on the carboys of drinking water in anticipation of shipwreck, and then finally limping back to Bahia without having captured a single chuckwalla—which for him represents the penultimate indignity.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • He could easily have cited the Aldabran tortoise, the chuckwalla of Angel de la Guarda, the hippo of Madagascar, the beetles of Madeira, the elephantids of Timor, the iguanas of the Galápagos, the finches of Darwin and Lack, the earwig of Saint Helena, and the dodo.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • The chuckwalla mortality is alarming, but another alarm rings somewhat more stridently.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • They tried chuckwallas too, but chuckwalla meat turned out to be more disagreeable than starvation.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

  • Of course the ultimate indignity, worse even than going home without chuckwalla data, is death.

    The Song of The Dodo David Quammen 2004

Comments

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  • The American Heritage Dictionary is aiming to displace Weirdnet. Did you know that the chuckwalla is a "large herbaceous lizard"?

    December 10, 2009

  • the etymology, to boot (if wikipedia can be trusted) has nothing to with Hindi--deriving "from the Shoshone word 'tcaxxwal' or Cahuilla 'caxwal', transcribed by Spaniards as 'chacahuala'"

    December 10, 2009

  • Blast that madmouth, I was just about to fake it.

    December 10, 2009

  • who's to say that isn't exactly what they call, say, club bouncers on the subcontinent, though?

    December 10, 2009

  • :-)))

    Bahahahah, yes!!!

    December 10, 2009

  • So the chuckwalla handles unruly lounge lizards!

    December 11, 2009

  • ...and she is come to bring the jest full circle

    *heads solemnly bowed*

    December 12, 2009