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snake

noun
/sneɪk/US

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”).

  1. inherited from *snakō✻ — “slider, snake”
  2. inherited from snaca — “snake, serpent, reptile”
  3. inherited from snake

Definitions

  1. Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped…

    Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.

    • The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.
    • After dark the train is a lighted snake, as, even when the passengers' lights are out, each carriage has a side-light in the middle just under the eaves.

  2. A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain

    A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

    • Near-synonyms: rat; see also Thesaurus:betrayer
    • Mrs. Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile, as Henrietta Petowker.
    • Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.

  3. A tool for unclogging plumbing.

  4. ›+ 19 more definitions

    1. A tool to aid cable pulling.

    2. A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.

    3. Trouser snake

      Trouser snake; the penis.

    4. A series of Bézier curves.

    5. The seventh Lenormand card.

    6. An informer

      An informer; a rat.

      • Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.
      • Yo, bare people and the snakes, yeah, they're just grass / Next minute you're the mate, yeah / Next day stab in the back

    7. Ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.

      • The snake failed to provide an anchor for currency stability and, through it, disinflation.

    8. Ellipsis of black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).

    9. Ellipsis of snake game.

    10. To follow or move in a winding route.

      • The path snaked through the forest.
      • The river snakes through the valley.
      • Any Brisbane female interested in snaking down a few beers whilst watching the footy on a big screen?

    11. To steal slyly.

      • He snaked my DVD!
      • Although it wouldn't be the first time some one patented an idea that I'd had a year earlier.[…]Someone already has :)[…]F*CK ME !! Snaked again !

    12. To clean using a plumbing snake.

    13. To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole

      To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; often with out.

      • November 27 1835, N.B. St. John, letter to George Thompson his wife and children shall not be forced to flee from the hearth of a friend, lest they should be snaked out by men in civic authority

    14. To wind round spirally, as a large rope with a smaller, or with cord, the small rope…

      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.

    15. To inform

      To inform; to rat; often with out.

      • He says he didn't snake and I believe him.

    16. The sixth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to…

      The sixth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

    17. An early computer game, later popular on mobile phones, in which the player attempts to…

      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.

    18. A surname.

    19. A placename

      A placename:

The neighborhood

Derived

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 · +214 more

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at snake. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01snake02reptiles03reptile04crocodile05crocodilian06caiman07lizards08lizard

A definitional loop anchored at snake. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at snake

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA