iguana
Americannoun
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a large, arboreal lizard, Iguana iguana, native to Central and South America, having stout legs and a crest of spines from neck to tail.
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any of various related lizards of the genera Iguana, Ctenosaura, Conolophus, and Amblyrhynchus.
noun
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either of two large tropical American arboreal herbivorous lizards of the genus Iguana, esp I. iguana ( common iguana ), having a greyish-green body with a row of spines along the back: family Iguanidae
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Also called: iguanid. any other lizard of the tropical American family Iguanidae
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another name for leguaan
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of iguana
1545–55; < Spanish < Arawak iwana
Explanation
An iguana is a big lizard with distinctive spines running down its back. If you keep an iguana as a pet, you'll want to feed it a lot of fresh vegetables. Iguanas look a little intimidating, since they grow as large as six feet long to the tip of the tail and have a head that resembles a dinosaur. While pet iguanas can sometimes be somewhat aggressive, they can be tamed with enough handling. The word iguana is Spanish, and it comes from a West Indies language, Arawak, and its word for this particular kind of lizard, iwana.
Vocabulary lists containing iguana
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One of them stuck though - a report of an iguana stuck on the roof of a house.
From BBC • Oct. 3, 2025
The results showed that native Fijian iguana populations have much greater genetic diversity than previously thought — possibly pointing to an entirely new species of iguana.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 24, 2025
They also collected X-ray videos from an iguana and an alligator and examined the shapes of leg bones in other birds, including a penguin, an ostrich, an owl, and a crane.
From Science Daily • Nov. 20, 2024
The Hi-Port ceiling rack is intended for kayaks, but one customer used it to hold their iguana cage and made a whole home on the ceiling for their reptile.
From Seattle Times • May 17, 2024
That evening our instructors took pity on us and gave us something else to eat: chunks of iguana.
From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
