Alligator ★★★ 1980 (R)

Dumped down a toilet 12 long years ago, lonely alligator Ramon resides in the city sewers, quietly eating and sleeping. In addition to feasting on the occasional stray human, Ramon devours the animal remains of a chemical plant's experiment involving growth hormones and eventually begins to swell at an enormous rate. Nothing seems to satisfy Ramon's ever-widening appetite: not all the people or all the buildings in the whole town, but he keeps trying, much to the regret of the guilt-ridden cop and lovely scientist who get to know each other while trying to nab the gator. Mediocre special effects are only a distraction in this witty eco-monster take. 94m/C VHS, DVD . Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Jack Carter, Henry Silva, Dean Jagger, Michael V. Gazzo, Perry Lang, Bart Braverman, Angel Tompkins, Sue Lyon, Sydney Lassick, James Ingersoll, John Lisbon Wood, Robert Doyle, Patti Jerome; D: Lewis Teague; W: John Sayles, Frank Ray Perilli; C: Joseph Mangine; M: Craig Hundley.

al·li·ga·tor / ˈaliˌgātər/ • n. a large semiaquatic reptile (genus Alligator, family Alligatoridae, order Crocodylia) similar to a crocodile but with a broader and shorter head. ∎  the skin of the alligator or material resembling it. ORIGIN: late 16th cent.: from Spanish el lagarto ‘the lizard,’ probably based on Latin lacerta.

alligator Broad-snouted crocodilian reptile found only in the USA and China. The American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, is found in the se USA; it grows up to 5.8m (19ft) long. The almost extinct smaller Chinese alligator, A. sinensis, is restricted to the Yangtze-Kiang river basin. Length: up to 1.5m (5ft). Family Alligatoridea.

alligator XVII (earlier lagarto, aligarto, ala- XVI). — Sp. el lagarto the LIZARD, which was applied spec. to the large saurians of the New World. Alligator pear (XVIII) is a corruption of AVOCADO pear.