- a variation of caiman.
cayman
Americannoun
-
caymans
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cayman
C16: from Spanish caimán, from Carib cayman, probably of African origin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One of these pets is a cayman, "part alligator, part crocodile".
From The Guardian ● Mar. 27, 2011
The cayman, living in captivity in the oppressive fug of Peter's apartment, is tiny, just half the size of Margaux's arm.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 27, 2011
As the kits watch, the mother creeps up, whacks the tail of an enormous cayman, then darts back as it lunges for her.
From Time Magazine Archive
The crocodile and cayman occur in the swampy littoral of the south.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 7 "Crocoite" to "Cuba" by Various
I had come above three hundred miles on purpose to get a cayman uninjured, and not to carry back a mutilated specimen.
From Wanderings in South America by Charles Waterton
Like Weisberger noted, there are also caymans and owls, and a watchful eye must always be kept out for the mosquitoes on the course.
From Golf Digest ● Aug. 9, 2016
As one cayman called another answered; and although caymans are not very common anywhere, that night you would have thought that the world was full of them.
From The Animal Story Book by Various
For this purpose he took some Indians with him to the Essequibo, which falls into the sea not far from Demerara, and was known to be a famous place for caymans.
From The Animal Story Book by Various
More than once in the drier parts of the marsh we met small caymans making their way from one pool to another.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt
Huge caymans abound in the river, and lie like logs of wood at the foot of the cataracts or rapids, watching stealthily to catch and swallow whatever the fierce current may bring down to them.
From The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America by William Henry Giles Kingston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
