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.
雙語例句
1. He was grappling with an alligator in a lagoon.
他正在環礁湖里與一只短吻鱷搏斗。
來自柯林斯例句
2. Alligator lives in the rivers and lakes in the hot wet parts of America and China.
短吻鱷產于美洲和中國的江湖及濕熱地帶.
來自《簡明英漢詞典》
3. She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.
她開始玩鱷魚玩具.
來自時文部分
4. All the government shoes are made of alligator hide.
公家的鞋都是鱷魚皮做的.
來自辭典例句
5. An American would be puzzled, to say the least, by a reference to an alligator.