snake
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See also: Snake
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- (internet slang, childish, jocular) snek
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-Germanic *snakô (compare German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”)), derived from *snakaną (“to crawl”) (compare Old High German snahhan), from Proto-Indo-European *sneg- (“to crawl; a creeping thing”). Cognate with Sanskrit नाग (nāgá, “snake”)). Doublet of nāga.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
snake (plural snakes)
- A legless reptile of the suborder Serpentes with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue.
- 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates[1]:
- The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.
- A treacherous person; a rat.
- 1838, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby[2]:
- 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.
- (Ireland, UK) Somebody who acts deceitfully for social gain.
- A tool for unclogging plumbing.
- Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake
- A tool to aid cable pulling.
- Synonym: wirepuller
- (Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
- (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.
- Synonym: trouser snake
- (mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.
- (cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.
- (MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.
- Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.
- (finance, historical) Short for snake in the tunnel.
- 2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69:
- The snake failed to provide an anchor for currency stability and, through it, disinflation.
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
Translations[edit]
legless reptile
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treacherous person
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plumbing tool
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb[edit]
snake (third-person singular simple present snakes, present participle snaking, simple past and past participle snaked)
- (intransitive) To follow or move in a winding route.
- 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, pages 59-60:
- Opened in June of that year [1880], the station was the southern terminus of the much-lamented Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (the S&D or 'Slow and Dirty'), which snaked its way down from Bath.
- (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.
- He snaked my DVD!
- (transitive) To clean using a plumbing snake.
- (US, informal) 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
- November 27 1835, N.B. St. John, letter to George Thompson
- (nautical) 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.
- (MLE) To inform; to rat.
- He says he didn't snake and I believe him.
Translations[edit]
to move in a winding path
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See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
Anagrams[edit]
Middle English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old English snaca, from Proto-West Germanic *snakō, from Proto-Germanic *snakô.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)
Descendants[edit]
References[edit]
- “snāke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-03.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *sneg-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
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- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English doublets
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- Middle English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *sneg-
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- Middle English terms derived from Old English
- Middle English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
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- Middle English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
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- enm:Snakes