English Explanatory Dictionary

snake

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.
  2. A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.
  3. A tool for unclogging plumbing.
  4. A tool to aid cable pulling.
  5. A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
  6. Trouser snake; the penis.
  7. A series of Bézier curves.
  8. The seventh Lenormand card.
  9. An informer; a rat.
  10. Ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.
  11. Ellipsis of black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).
  12. Ellipsis of snake game.
verb
  1. To follow or move in a winding route.
  2. To steal slyly.
  3. To clean using a plumbing snake.
  4. To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; often with out.
  5. To wind round spirally, as a large rope with a smaller, or with cord, the small rope lying in the spaces between the strands of the large one; to worm.
  6. To inform; to rat; often with out.
name
  1. The sixth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
  2. An early computer game, later popular on mobile phones, in which the player attempts to manoeuvre a perpetually growing snake so as to collect food items and avoid colliding with walls or the snake's tail.
  3. A surname.
  4. A placename:
  5. A river in the northwestern United States, tributary to the Columbia.
  6. Ellipsis of Snake Island.

Pronunciation

snāk /sneɪk/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-snake.wav En-us-snake.ogg LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Snake.wav En-au-snake.ogg

Word forms

snake snakes snek snaking snaked

Etymology

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“slider, snake”), from *snakan (“to creep, slide”), related to Old High German snahhan (“to sneak, slide”). Compare also Proto-Germanic *snēkô (“creeper, crawler”). Cognate with German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Danish snog (“grass snake”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Norwegian Nynorsk snåk (“viper, adder”), Faroese snákur (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”).

Synonyms

danger noodle nope rope snake serpent joe blake rat backstabber betrayer double-crosser quisling ratter recreant renegade snake in the grass swike traitor treacher treacherer treasonist turntippet withersake wolf in sheep's clothing auger plumber's snake wirepuller trouser snake abaddon accuser beefer bewrayer bigmouth blabber blabtale blabtongue canary CI finger fink fizgig gossip grass informant informer jurat leak mole narc nark nonce outer peacher ratfink rooster sneak snitch snout squealer state's evidence stooge stool pigeon

Related words

:Category:Snakes anguine

Derived words

Aesculapian snake antisnake arrow snake as mad as a cut snake ball snake bastard horn snake beer snake Big Bend patchnose snake black pepper snake black snake blacksnake blind snake blood snake blow snake blue-bellied black snake Boettger's two-headed snake brown snake bull snake bullsnake carpet snake cat snake caution to snakes cherish a snake in one's bosom chicken snake Chinese snake gourd coffee snake come up snake eyes come up with snake eyes common purple-glossed snake Congo snake coral snake corn snake crayfish snake crooked as a barrel of snakes curl snake dart snake De Kay's brown snake De Kay's snake dice snake draft snake dragon snake drain the snake earth snake eastern indigo snake eleven-striped blind snake enough to choke a snake fangtooth snake-eel fierce snake file snake flowsnake fox snake Futsing wolf snake gardener snake garden snake garter snake glass snake gold-ringed cat snake gopher snake go snake Gould's hooded snake
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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