狻猊

Etymology
The (legendary) beast was mentioned in the ancient Chinese glossary  as 狻麑, a "devourer of tigers and leopards". It was also attested in the  (nominally from the ; however the textual history of the book was problematic). If correctly identified as a legendary account of the lion as later texts do, it may be a (partial) borrowing, possibly from a historical Iranian or Indo-Iranian language.

The use of possibly predates that of. Compare,.

Noun

 * 1)  lion
 * 2)  mythological creature which is said to be a hybrid of lion and dragon, likes to sit down and is one of the nine sons of the dragon
 * 1)  mythological creature which is said to be a hybrid of lion and dragon, likes to sit down and is one of the nine sons of the dragon
 * 1)  mythological creature which is said to be a hybrid of lion and dragon, likes to sit down and is one of the nine sons of the dragon

Noun

 * 1)  a suanni, a cross between a dragon and a lion

Proper noun

 * 1)  the suanni that was one of the