英语词汇alligator的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

alligator. The biggest lizard that the Romans knew was about the size of the forearm and was thus named lacertus (“forearm”), which eventually came into Spanish use as lagarto. When the Spaniards encountered a huge New World saurian that resem- bled a lizard, they called it el lagarto, “the lizard,” putting the def- inite article before the noun as they are accustomed to doing. En- glishmen assumed this to be a single word, elagarto, which in time became corrupted in speech to alligator. This is probably the way the word was born, but much better is an old story about an early explorer sighting the creature and exclaiming, “There’s a lagarto!” Less dangerous than the crocodile, the alli- gator does have a worse “bark”: it is one of the few reptiles capa- ble of making a loud sound. See also crocodile tears.

词汇	alligator
词源	alligator. The biggest lizard that the Romans knew was about the size of the forearm and was thus named lacertus (“forearm”), which eventually came into Spanish use as lagarto. When the Spaniards encountered a huge New World saurian that resem- bled a lizard, they called it el lagarto, “the lizard,” putting the def- inite article before the noun as they are accustomed to doing. En- glishmen assumed this to be a single word, elagarto, which in time became corrupted in speech to alligator. This is probably the way the word was born, but much better is an old story about an early explorer sighting the creature and exclaiming, “There’s a lagarto!” Less dangerous than the crocodile, the alli- gator does have a worse “bark”: it is one of the few reptiles capa- ble of making a loud sound. See also crocodile tears.
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