dromedary

name

1. A locality in Brighton council area and the Southern Midlands council area, south eastern Tasmania, Australia.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English dromedari, dromedarie (“dromedary; any camel”) [and other forms], from Old French dromedaire, from Late Latin dromedārius (“kind of camel”), from Latin *dromadārius, from dromas, dromadis (“dromedary”) + -ārius (suffix forming nouns denoting agents of use). Dromas and dromadis are derived from Ancient Greek δρομᾰ́ς (dromắs, “running; dromedary”), an ellipsis of δρομὰς κάμηλος (dromàs kámēlos, “running camel”), from δρόμος (drómos, “race, running; race course, track”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *drem- (“to run”).

1. The single-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius).

   “The duke in his schelde and dreches no lengere, / Drawes hym a dromedarie, with dredfulle knyghtez; [...]”

   “The Dromedarie, Camell, Horſe, and Aſſe, / For loade and carriage doth a Sheepe ſurpaſſe: [...]”

2. Any swift riding camel.

   “[T]hou art like a ſwift dromedarie, that runneth by his wayes.”

3. Referring to a biphasic clinical course of poliomyelitis, typically occurring in children, characterized by a minor illness, followed by an asymptomatic period of several days before the onset of a major illness involving the central nervous system.

   “The untreated cases have been arranged in three groups according to the clinical course. The first group, called the dromedary group, shows the curious phenomenon of two different periods of illness with an interval of well-being. […] Because of the two distinct groups or humps of symptoms, the analogy to the arrangement of the dromedary’s back was taken to express the type figuratively.”