alligator: [16] The Spanish, on encountering the alligator in America, called it el lagarto ‘the lizard’. At first English adopted simply the noun (‘In this river we killed a monstrous Lagarto or Crocodile’, Job Hortop, The trauailes of an Englishman 1568), but before the end of the 16th century the Spanish definite article el had been misanalysed as part of the noun – hence, alligator. Spanish lagarto derived from Latin lacerta ‘lizard’, which, via Old French lesard, gave English lizard. => lizard
alligator (n.)
1560s, lagarto (modern form attested from 1620s, with excrescent -r as in tater, feller, etc.), a corruption of Spanish el lagarto (de Indias) "the lizard (of the Indies)," from Latin lacertus (see lizard). Alligarter was an early variant. The slang meaning "non-playing devotee of swing music" is attested from 1936; the phrase see you later, alligator is from a 1956 song title.
实用例句
1. He was grappling with an alligator in a lagoon.
他正在环礁湖里与一只短吻鳄搏斗。来自柯林斯例句
2. Alligator lives in the rivers and lakes in the hot wet parts of America and China.
短吻鳄产于美洲和中国的江湖及湿热地带.来自《简明英汉词典》
3. She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.
她开始玩鳄鱼玩具.来自时文部分
4. All the government shoes are made of alligator hide.
公家的鞋都是鳄鱼皮做的.来自辞典例句
5. An American would be puzzled, to say the least, by a reference to an alligator.
