alligator, alligarta, lagartos

[In Dan., Ger., & Fr. alligator; from Sp. el legarto = the lizard, pre-eminent above other lacertine animals in size. Herrera calls the caiman lagarto o crocodilo; Cowel derives it from Port. all agar to = a crocodile; Sir T. Herbert from allegartos, which he calls Sp. and Almain (Todd's Johnson). Sir Walter Raleigh terms the alligator Lagartos (q.v.). Al would then be the Spanish definite article el the; and when the English sailors heard it pronounced immediately before lagartos, they, as Trench believes, supposed it part of that word. (Trench: Study of Words, p. 118.) Some older writers looked for the origin of the word alligator in another direction, deriving it from legateer, or allegater, the alleged Indian name for the animal.] "I do remember an apothecary, And hereabouts he dwells, which late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery bad worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff d." Shakesp.: Romeo & Juliet, v. 1. 1. Zool. A genus of reptiles belonging to the order Crocodilia, and the family Crocodilidæ. It is known from its nearest allies, the Crocodiles and Gavials, by having the head depre ed and the canine teeth of the lower jaw received in a pit in the upper. The hind feet are never completely webbed, and sometimes there is scarcely any membrane at all. The genus was formerly thought to be confined to the New World, but in 1890 two specimens of the Chinese Alligator (A. sinensis) were received by the Zoological Society, and exhibited in their Gardens, Regent's Park. 317 ALLIGATOR (ALLIGATOR MISS IS SIP ENS IS). The best known species is A. mi is sip i ens is, the Alligator of the Mi i ippi. It attains the length of fifteen or eighteen feet, or even more. At the approach of winter it buries itself in a hole on a river's bank, and becomes for a time torpid. 2. Popularly: Any crocodilian animal inhabiting the New World. These are not all of the genus above described; thus the "alligators" of the West Indies are true crocodiles.