crocodilly

plural crocodillies

1. childishcolloquialA crocodile.

   “We used rocks and bottles, but could not kill the crocodilly.” / “Yeah. They’re thick-skinned bastards.”

   2011, Scott Evans, “The Crocodile”, in Green Seasons, San Francisco, Calif.: Phyllis Scott Enterprises, →ISBN, page 176

   4 more examples

   Mostly they is crocodilly but some be alligator that favor the crocodilly. Right now the place have a high scent but don’t let these animals worry you none, Mr. Bernard. I’m gon’a fumigate this place and paint it up, pretty, pretty.

   1977 January, Bernard Nietschmann, quoting Seymore Robinson, “A Naturalist at Large: The Nicaraguan Skin Connection”, in Natural History, volume LXXXVI, number 1, New York, N.Y.: American Museum of Natural History, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 30, column 2

   “Mama, someone’s knocking at the back door,” Tommy-Blue called out. / Everyone in the room paused to listen. / Everyone except one. “I’m a crocodilly!” Punky squealed. / “Shhh, Punky . . . listen!” Corrie and Dola cautioned at the same time.

   2000, Stephen Bly, chapter 3, in Hidden Treasure (The Skinners of Goldfield; 2), Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, →ISBN, page 81

   Only Walt, who with the others had by then arrived, wouldn’t eat the Callaloo Stew with Frizzled Chicken. ‘You don’t eat your friends with a knife and spoon,’ he explained with dignity. / ‘He’d never eat a crocodilly neither,’ supposed Cuth.

   2007, Tanith Lee, “Dinosaur and Dinner-Saw”, in Piratica III: The Family Sea; Being: The Gallant Tale of a Fearless Heroine and a Fatal Secret, London: Hodder Children’s Books, →ISBN, act 1 (Audition), pages 51–52

   “Don’t know. One of them turtles, maybe.” / “A plesie?” I said. “Are you sure?” / Davy shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, it could be a crocodilly. I never knowed the difference.”

   2009, Tracy Chevalier, “The lightning that signalled my greatest happiness”, in Remarkable Creatures, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 321

comparative more crocodilly · superlative most crocodilly

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of crocodiley.

   (You remember? –:›Crocodilly tears‹?

   2016, Arno Schmidt, translated by John E[dwin] Woods, “Book v. Franziska⹀Nameh”, in Bottom’s Dream, Victoria, Tex.: Dalkey Archive Press, →ISBN, marginal note, page 736

   3 more examples

   Kindly affectioned and unselfish to the bitter end, did the dying saurian once again lift up his crocodilly voice, now faint and tinny with the hollowness of dissolution, and cry, “Avaunt, good Saracen, avaunt! Bide further afield, lest peradventure, in the tantrums of death, I cleave thy skull with my scaly tail. But, oh! for the love of Him that made us both, speak no more so despitefully of crocodile tears”—and he wept aloud.

   1896 July, J. Lawson, “The Kindly Crocodile”, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume CCLXXXI, number 1987, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 58

   I love your lovely slender neck / And legs so slim and tall, / Because I’ve only scaly ones / And not a neck at all. / And if you will not marry me / (The worst of all my fears) / I’ll waste away and cry a sea / Of crocodilly tears.

   1982, Babette Cole, Nungu and the Crocodile (picturemacS), London: Macmillan Children’s Books, published 1985, →ISBN

   It is amazing how hook-up leads and jump leads can tangle, even mate with each other, no matter how carefully you coil them and stow them away. Anyfing wiv a crocodilly clip on t'end comes alive and grabs mouthfuls of cable in any order or fashion, that takes hours to unravel.

   2015 June 18, canaldrifter, “The Buggrance Factor”, in uk.rec.sheds (Usenet), archived from the original on 25 Apr 2025