Since its first appearance as American slang in 1917, "lounge lizard'' has surprisingly shown up in nearly every decade. A lounge lizard is typically depicted as a well-dressed man who frequents the establishments in which the rich gather with the intention of seducing a wealthy woman with his flattery and deceptive charm. The term presumably owes something to the cold and insinuating quality of reptiles. It has also been suggested that the name derives in part from the "lizards,'' that is, shoes made from crocodile or snakeskin, that were sometimes sported by such men, but there is no solid evidence of this.
Eventually, the lounge lizard as social parasite decided to play chameleon and take on many appearances. "Lounge lizard'' then became a generalized term applying to any frequenter of nightclubs. In the 1980s, it had a brief stint as a descriptor of a young person whose life revolved around the alternative, punk nightclub scene.