chamois

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra.

   When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub – a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills.

2. 2
   noun

   Ellipsis of chamois leather (“soft pliable leather originally made from the skin of chamois (nowadays the hides of deer, sheep, and other species of goat are alternatively used)”).

   [H]e seldom donned his armour, substituted costly damask and silk for his war-worn shamoy doublet, and affected at his advanced time of life more gaiety of attire than his contemporaries remembered as distinguishing his early youth.

3. 3
   noun

   An absorbent cloth used for cleaning and polishing, formerly made of chamois leather.

   I took them, breathed on them, polished them with a chamois and hung them on the chandelier.

4. 4
   noun

   hoofed mammal of mountains of Eurasia having upright horns with backward-hooked tips

Borrowed from Middle French chamois, from Late Latin camox, from Gaulish camox (5th c. AD, Polemius Silvius), probably from an extinct Alpine language (Raetic, Ancient Ligurian), possibly Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“without horns”). Compare also Old High German gamiza (“chamois”) (whence modern German Gämse).

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