Meaning

noun alert agile lizard with reduced limbs and an elongated body covered with shiny scales; more dependent on moisture than most lizards; found in tropical regions worldwide

originPossibly from Middle Low German schink, schinke, schenke (“leg; shank; shin bone; ham”), from Old Saxon skinka, from Proto-West Germanic *skinkō (“shank; thigh; that which is bent”), from Proto-Germanic *skinkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to limp; to be crooked, slant”). The word is cognate with Danish skinke (“ham”), Middle Dutch schenke, schinke (“shin; hough; ham”), Icelandic skinka…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0