The earliest mention of the mythical qilin is in the poem 麟之趾; Lín zhī zhǐ; 'Feet of the Lin' included in the Classic of Poetry (11th – 7th c.

[4][5][6] The bisyllabic form qilin (麒麟 ~ 騏驎), which carries the same generic meaning as lin alone, is attested in works dated to the Warring States period (475–221 BCE).

[10][11] The identification of the qilin with giraffes began after Zheng He's 15th-century voyage to East Africa (landing, among other places, in modern-day Somalia).

The Ming Dynasty bought giraffes from the Somali merchants along with zebras, incense, and various other exotic animals.

Finnish linguist Juha Janhunen tentatively compares *gərin to an etymon reconstructed as *kalimV,[14] denoting "whale"; and represented in the language isolate Nivkh and four different language families Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic and Samoyedic, wherein *kalay(ә)ng means "whale" (in Nenets) and *kalVyǝ "mammoth" (in Enets and Nganasan).

However, Janhunen cautiously remarks that "[t]he formal and semantic similarity between *kilin < *gilin ~ *gïlin 'unicorn' and *kalimV 'whale' (but also Samoyedic *kalay- 'mammoth') is sufficient to support, though perhaps not confirm, the hypothesis of an etymological connection", and also notes a possible connection between Old Chinese and Mongolian (*)kers ~ (*)keris ~ (*)kiris "rhinoceros" (Khalkha: хирс).

[15] Qilin generally have Chinese dragon-like features: similar heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards.

The Han dynasty dictionary Shuowen Jiezi describes qi as single-horned,[8] and it can sometimes be depicted as having a single horn.

[23] In Phra Aphai Mani, the masterpiece epic poem of Sunthorn Phu, a renowned poet of the 18th century.

It was a mixture of horse, dragon, deer antlers, fish scales, and Phaya Nak tail, with has black sequins all over.