General term for crocodilians; in everyday Japanese, ワニ covers both crocodiles and alligators without strict biological distinction.
I saw a crocodile in Australia.
Archaic meaning; in old Japanese, わに could refer to a shark or a large sea creature. Not used in modern Japanese.
A man swimming in the river was attacked by a crocodile.
Crocodiles are reptiles.
In the Kojiki, ワニ appears as a large sea fish.
He keeps a small crocodile as a pet.
A zookeeper was bitten by a crocodile and injured.
In archaic usage ワニ could mean a shark or large sea creature, but modern Japanese uses 鮫 exclusively for sharks.
ワニ covers crocodilians in general, whereas アリゲーター is a loanword specifying an alligator rather than a crocodile.
counter for small animals · counter for rolls of cloth · archaic counter for horses · roll of cloth
knock-kneed; pigeon-toed
walking with feet pointing outward; duck-footed gait
mugger crocodile; marsh crocodile
sand tiger shark; gray nurse shark
alligator snapping turtle
wide mouth; big mouth · alligator · temple gong
avocado; alligator pear
crocodile skin; alligator leather
ferocious shark; man-eating shark
wanieso lizardfish
Usually written in katakana; usually written in kana.
Kanji form; rarely used in modern writing.
Hiragana spelling, also common.
Outdated kanji form; not in common use.
The origin is uncertain. The archaic sense 'shark' may be the original meaning, with the shift to 'crocodile' occurring later. The kanji 鰐 is a phono-semantic compound, but the historical derivation of the word わに itself is unclear.