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snake
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
snake
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
garter snake
grass snake
poisonous snake
▪ She was bitten on the ankle by a poisonous snake.
snake charmer
snake eyes
snake oil
snake/ant etc bite
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
poisonous
▪ Many of the animals are hostile to humans: for example, poisonous snakes and fierce mountain cats.
▪ The air is filled with a dingo's howl, the footpaths alive with the poisonous snakes on their slithering nocturnal hunt.
▪ Ruby Wax found some real wackos in West Virginia-loons who use poisonous snakes in religious ceremonies.
▪ The poisonous snakes invite a certain deference, and the rattlesnake is even canned occasionally for human consumption.
▪ In popular mythology poisonous snakes are always ready and waiting for the chance to strike out and kill their attackers.
▪ While on a mission, Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake.
▪ By the way, I don't keep any poisonous snakes.
▪ The King Cobra, or Hamadryad, is the largest of all poisonous snakes.
venomous
▪ Ways strewn with thorns and brambles and alive with venomous snakes!
▪ The many crevices once hid hundreds of the venomous snake indigenous to the Central Maryland region.
▪ Some animals, such as venomous snakes and spiders, inject venoms in order to immobilise and kill their prey.
▪ Much maligned, the adder is our only venomous snake, feeding on other reptiles and small mammals.
▪ The brightly marked sea snakes are among the most venomous snakes to be found anywhere in the world.
■ NOUN
bite
▪ Human deaths from snake bites are caused mainly by accident.
▪ In his magazine, he published formulas for animal manures and prescriptions for the cure of snake bites and malaria.
▪ I sent him back to the Patel farm with his snake bite and his elaborate complaints.
■ VERB
keep
▪ Other men in the penitentiary kept garden snakes, rats and pigeons for pets...
▪ I was fully awake, but kept seeing the snake slide over the log.
▪ He had to keep his arms free as he needed them to keep the snake from suffocating him.
▪ The advent of generalized floating in early 1973 meant that there was no longer any requirement to keep the snake in the tunnel.
▪ By the way, I don't keep any poisonous snakes.
▪ Suzy even seemed intrigued when he told her he kept a snake as a pet rather than disgusted.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
snake oil salesman/peddler
▪ For all his odd and scary views, Buchanan has played the fear card like a snake oil salesman hawking eternal life.
▪ Perhaps, when the shouting from snake oil salesmen subsides, our leaders will find a way to forge a bipartisan solution.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A geek is a carnival performer who bites the heads off live chickens and snakes.
▪ A solid snake of people still wound back along the north shore of the loch.
▪ But at darkest midnight when all was silent in the house two great snakes came crawling into the nursery.
▪ In a corner, hoses lay coiled like a family of dormant snakes.
▪ Now he found himself playing Kaa, the deaf snake known for the power of his hug.
▪ The snake was still inside the leg, and I couldn't even see it.
▪ They may be wise as an owl, slippery as an eel or even a snake in the grass.
▪ When I was born, the nurses said I was cold as a snake.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
down
▪ Then, for the last twenty minutes, the road snakes down the mountainside.
▪ The stem of the poppy snakes down and up again, in defiance of gravity, the head faces the viewer.
▪ Her hand snaked down his pyjamas to feel his hardness ... Then it was morning.
in
▪ It snakes in and out of ports, along our busiest highways and through our most crowded cities.
out
▪ His bony wrist snaked out, towards the trailing end of the bull's rope.
▪ The cool spring nights force snakes out to warm themselves in the morning sun, making the spring ideal for hunting.
▪ A line of folks hoping for returns snaked out the door to the pavement on Howard Street.
up
▪ His left arm went round behind her neck, his right snaked up inside the clinging fabric of her dress.
▪ The weight of the ensemble was counterbalanced by the tug of transmission cables snaking up into the ceiling.
▪ The police car held the wet roads, even the treacherous lanes that snaked up into the hills.
▪ The smelt mills had long flues that in some cases snaked up the hillside and across the fell.
▪ Suddenly the coil ran out and I watched the tail end go snaking up the hill.
▪ Smoke snaked up from a campfire amidst crudely plastered and thatched huts.
■ NOUN
way
▪ The line at the bank snaked its way out on to the street.
▪ I can see it snaking this way and that through Laverne's flapping fringe.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Across its upper half, two lines Of human figures snake toward an abstract river.
▪ He could not believe that her hand snaked across the seat toward his.
▪ He led the way, his slim hips in the tight fitting pants snaking gracefully between the tables.
▪ I stared at the brown rivulets snaking down the wall where my window should have been.
▪ It snakes in and out of ports, along our busiest highways and through our most crowded cities.
▪ Ships steamed, highways snaked, houses clustered, all, from this height, orderly, and in their smallness touching.
▪ Usually the lines pictured on the evening news were just the ones that snaked outside store entrances.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Snake

Snake \Snake\, n. [AS. snaca; akin to LG. snake, schnake, Icel. sn[=a]kr, sn?kr, Dan. snog, Sw. snok; of uncertain origin.] (Zo["o]l.) Any species of the order Ophidia; an ophidian; a serpent, whether harmless or venomous. See Ophidia, and Serpent. Note: Snakes are abundant in all warm countries, and much the larger number are harmless to man. Blind snake, Garter snake, Green snake, King snake, Milk snake, Rock snake, Water snake, etc. See under Blind, Garter, etc. Fetich snake (Zo["o]l.), a large African snake ( Python Seb[ae]) used by the natives as a fetich. Ringed snake (Zo["o]l.), a common European columbrine snake ( Tropidonotus natrix). Snake eater. (Zo["o]l.)

  1. The markhoor.

  2. The secretary bird. Snake fence, a worm fence (which see). [U.S.] Snake fly (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of neuropterous insects of the genus Rhaphidia; -- so called because of their large head and elongated neck and prothorax. Snake gourd (Bot.), a cucurbitaceous plant ( Trichosanthes anguina) having the fruit shorter and less snakelike than that of the serpent cucumber. Snake killer. (Zo["o]l.)

    1. The secretary bird.

    2. The chaparral cock.

      Snake moss (Bot.), the common club moss ( Lycopodium clavatum). See Lycopodium.

      Snake nut (Bot.), the fruit of a sapindaceous tree ( Ophiocaryon paradoxum) of Guiana, the embryo of which resembles a snake coiled up.

      Tree snake (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of colubrine snakes which habitually live in trees, especially those of the genus Dendrophis and allied genera.

Snake

Snake \Snake\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Snaked; p. pr. & vb. n. Snaking.]

  1. To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; -- often with out. [Colloq. U.S.]
    --Bartlett.

  2. (Naut.) 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.

Snake

Snake \Snake\, v. i. To crawl like a snake.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
snake

Old English snaca, from Proto-Germanic *snakon (cognates: Old Norse snakr "snake," Swedish snok, German Schnake "ring snake"), from PIE root *sneg- "to crawl, creeping thing" (cognates: Old Irish snaighim "to creep," Lithuanian snake "snail," Old High German snahhan "to creep"). In Modern English, gradually replacing serpent in popular use.\n

\nTraditionally applied to the British serpent, as distinguished from the poisonous adder. Meaning "treacherous person" first recorded 1580s (compare Old Church Slavonic gadu "reptile," gadinu "foul, hateful"). Applied from 17c. to various snake-like devices and appliances. Snakes! as an exclamation is from 1839.\n

\nSnake eyes in crap-shooting sense is from 1919. Snake-bitten "unlucky" is sports slang from 1957, from a literal sense, perhaps suggesting one doomed by being poisoned. The game of Snakes and Ladders is attested from 1907. Snake charmer is from 1813. Snake pit is from 1883, as a supposed primitive test of truth or courage; figurative sense is from 1941. Phrase snake in the grass is from Virgil's Latet anguis in herba [Ecl. III:93].\n

snake

1650s, "to twist or wind (hair) into the form of a snake," from snake (n.). The intransitive sense of "to move like a snake" is attested from 1848; that of "to wind or twist like a snake" (of roads, etc.) is from 1875. Related: Snaked; snaking.

Wiktionary
snake

n. 1 A legless reptile of the sub-order ''Serpentes'' with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue. 2 A treacherous person. 3 A tool for unclogging plumbing. 4 A tool to aid cable pulling. 5 (context slang English) A trouser snake; the penis. vb. (context intransitive English) To follow or move in a winding route.

WordNet
snake
  1. n. limbless scaly elongate reptile; some are venomous [syn: serpent, ophidian]

  2. a deceitful or treacherous person [syn: snake in the grass]

  3. a tributary of the Columbia River that rises in Wyoming and flows westward; discovered in 1805 by the Lewis and Clark Expedition [syn: Snake River]

  4. a long faint constellation in the southern hemisphere near the equator stretching between Virgo and Cancer [syn: Hydra]

  5. something resembling a snake

snake
  1. v. move smoothly and sinuously, like a snake

  2. form a snake-like pattern; "The river snakes through the valley"

  3. move along a winding path; "The army snaked through the jungle"

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Snake (video game)

Snake is the common name for a videogame concept where the player maneuvers a line which grows in length, with the line itself being a primary obstacle. The concept originated in the 1976 arcade game Blockade, and its simplicity has led to many implementations (some of which have the word snake or worm in the title). After a variant was preloaded on Nokia mobile phones in 1998, there was a resurgence of interest in the snake concept as it found a larger audience.

Snake (disambiguation)

A snake is an elongate, legless, predatory reptile.

Snake may also refer to:

Snake (band)

Snake is an Uruguayan rock band formed in 1995 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The original founders were lalo keoroglian, Alejandro moundjian and Mikael Boudakian. The current members actually are Marcelo Fontanini (lead vocals, Mikael Boudakian ( bass guitar), Claudio ( guitar) Mape bossio (drummer).

Snake

Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca.

Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands, such as Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, the Hawaiian archipelago, and the islands of New Zealand, and many small islands of the Atlantic and central Pacific oceans. Additionally, sea snakes are widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. More than 20 families are currently recognized, comprising about 500 genera and about 3,400 species. They range in size from the tiny, 10.4 cm-long thread snake to the reticulated python of in length. The fossil species Titanoboa cerrejonensis was long. Snakes are thought to have evolved from either burrowing or aquatic lizards, perhaps during the Jurassic period, with the earliest known fossils dating to between 143 and 167 Ma ago.

The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene period (c 66 to 56 Ma ago). The oldest preserved descriptions of snakes can be found in the Brooklyn Papyrus.

Most species are nonvenomous and those that have venom use it primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self-defense. Some possess venom potent enough to cause painful injury or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or kill by constriction.

Snake (zodiac)

The Snake () is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and related to the Chinese calendar, as well as in related East Asian zodiacal or calendrical systems. The Year of the Snake is associated with the Earthly Branch symbol .

According to one mythical legend, there is a reason for the order of the 12 animals in the 12-year cycle. The story goes that a race was held to cross a great river, and the order of the animals in the cycle was based upon their order in finishing the race. In this story, the Snake compensated for not being the best swimmer by hitching a hidden ride on the Horse's hoof, and when the Horse was just about to cross the finish line, jumping out, scaring the Horse, and thus edging it out for sixth place.

The same 12 animals are also used to symbolize the cycle of hours in the day, each being associated with a two-hour time period. The "hour" of the Snake is 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., the time when the sun warms up the earth, and Snakes are said to slither out of their holes. The "month" of the Snake is May 5 to June 5.

The reason the animal signs are referred to as "zodiacal" is that one's personality is said to be influenced by the animal sign(s) ruling the time of birth, together with elemental aspects of the animal signs within the sexagenarian (60 year) cycle. Similarly, the year governed by a particular animal sign is supposed to be characterized by it, with the effects particularly strong for people who were born in a year governed by the same animal sign.

In Chinese symbology, Snakes are regarded as intelligent, but with a tendency to be somewhat unscrupulous.

Snake (song)

"Snake" is a song by American recording artist R. Kelly, featuring Big Tigger, from his fifth studio album, Chocolate Factory. The remix features Cam'ron. It was released on December 15, 2002, by Jive Records as the second single from the album. The R&B song with Latin music inspiration was written and produced by R. Kelly, and co-written by Darian Morgan, as a tribute to Stevie Wonder's musical experimentation. The song also inspired the dancehall reggae riddim called Baghdad.

"Snake" achieved moderate success, reaching number sixteen at the United States' Hot 100, and the tenth position on the United Kingdom. A special double-A-side edition with " Thoia Thoing" was also released. The maxi-single charted at number ten in the Netherlands, number thirty in France, number sixteen in Australia and at number eighteen in Switzerland. A remix with actor and musician Cam'ron was also released.

Usage examples of "snake".

Then, the Director had still been in the grip of a frightful gene-transmutation that had turned him into a thing from nightmare: a monstrous admixture of man and snake that reared out of radiant yellow mud.

Amongst the Central Australian natives there is never any idea of appealing for assistance to any one of these Alcheringa ancestors in any way, nor is there any attempt made in the direction of propitiation, with one single exception in the case of the mythic creature called Wollunqua, amongst the Warramunga tribe, who, it may be remarked, is most distinctly regarded as a snake and not as a human being.

There a snake was poised, not coiled, not menacing to strike, simply waiting, with round head alift and trembling tongue.

For our High-king ever sees enemies alurk all about him, and snakes under his very bed.

Inside the Snake Den all was amorphous liquid mud, owing to the copious seepage.

The smoking flame started snaking back through the doors of the armoury into the passageway that led to the main powder magazine.

But evidently she saw him as a lesser enemy and focused her wrath on the Asper snake.

Then his vision cleared and he saw that the Asper snake was gone and the chamber had returned to its former gloom.

Surely he knows that if he does not do this, the Basilican blade I hold in my hands will snake out and take his head clean off his shoulders as I rise.

Bracken fern, rank and tall, Chorizema and snake vine, Bauera with the always blooming pink flowerets, and Tetratheca, with the layer of tangled twigs, made the going difficult.

We landed here for water, as we have just lain becalmed off a damned island full of ghost snakes and walking statues.

I had no objections to go to the bush--I dreaded neither natives, nor snakes, nor bushrangers, but I behoved to make good wages.

The new Grand Prix course snakes through 35 acres once known as Bicentennial Park.

Snake biocomputer technology, potentially compromising most human infrastructure.

It was not the five-bladed slave whip, invented for the full and perfect punishment of an erring slave girl, but only a light, one-bladed bosk whip, little more than a switch of leather, a mere incitement and encouragement to better performance on the part of a slacking plow beast, but it struck my back like a hot snake and a rifle shot.