- 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
They take their name from being a resort for the cayman, or alligator, who frequent these shores for the purpose of depositing their eggs in the sand.
From Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume II (of 2) A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day by Anonymous
Habitations of reptiles.—Of the great saurians, the gavials which inhabit the Ganges differ from the cayman of America, or the crocodile of the Nile.
From Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
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
At the period at which I first occupied my habitation, and began to colonise the village of Jala-Jala, caymans abounded on that side of the lake.
From Adventures in the Philippine Islands by Paul P. de La Gironière
But the tables were readily turned if any caymans were injured.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt
He had streams to ford, dark with caymans, and he had to traverse woods where the jaguars howled.
From The Monarchs of the Main, Volume I (of 3) Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers by Walter Thornbury
The Paraguayan caymans are not ordinarily dangerous to man; but they do sometimes become man-eaters and should be destroyed whenever the opportunity offers.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt
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.
