After introducing the world to magical words such as “Muggle,” “Horcux” and “Quidditch” in the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling is back with another fantastical name for fans to add to their wizarding vocabulary.
During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the author explained the origin of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them term “Choranaptyxic”—her name for the ability of the bird-snake hybrid Occamy to grow and shrink to fit its surroundings:
I thought it was a real thing. I had been told in my youth that fish only grow to the size that’s available. So I was confident of this and thought there will be a term for a creature that only grows to the available space. But then I looked it all up and I found to my horror that fish remain stunted if the water quality is poor so they don’t have that quality at all. So I had to coin this phrase because I’d conceived of this creature that could shrink or grow according to the available space.
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Write to Megan McCluskey at megan.mccluskey@time.com