'gator

plural 'gators

1. alternativeAlternative form of gator.

   It was bad enough for white people, but when one of your own color could be so different it put you on a wonder. It was like seeing your sister turn into a ’gator.

   1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 5, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 76

   2 more examples

   On the opposite bank was a fresh ’gator wallow. The mud had been packed smooth where they turned and rolled their hard bodies. Penny dropped to his haunches behind a buttonwood bush.

   1938, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 24, in The Yearling, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 303

   And the old grempers and gremmers, sitting on benches, telling lies about days when there were still patches of mangrove swamp in these parts, thick with deer and ’gators and even “critters” never catalogued by science.

   1990, David Brin, Earth, Bantam Spectra, →ISBN, page 229