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Wiktionary

snake

See also: Snake

English

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A snake (anaconda).

Alternative forms

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  • (internet slang, childish, jocular) snek

Etymology

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From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“snake”) (compare German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”)), derived via Proto-Germanic *snakô from Proto-Germanic *snakaną (“to crawl”) (compare Old High German snahhan), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neg- (“to crawl; a creeping thing”). Cognate with Sanskrit नाग (nāgá, “snake”)). Doublet of nāga.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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snake (plural snakes)

  2. A legless reptile of the suborder Serpentes with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue.
    Synonyms: joe blake, serpent
    • 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates‎[1]:
      The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.
    • 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:
      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.
  3. 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.
    • 2021, Peter McKenna, 5:51 from the start, in Kin, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Frank Kinsella (Aidan Gillen):
      Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.
  4. A person who acts deceitfully for social gain.
  5. A tool for unclogging plumbing.
    Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake
  6. A tool to aid cable pulling.
    Synonym: wirepuller
  7. (UK, Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
  8. (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.
    Synonym: trouser snake
  9. (mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.
  10. (cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.
  11. (MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:informant
    Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.
    • 2017 April 7, “War Dub”, performed by Little T (Josh Tate):
      Yo, bare people and the snakes, yeah, they're just grass / Next minute you're the mate, yeah / Next day stab in the back
  12. (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.
  13. Short for black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Maori: neke
  • → Sranan Tongo: sneki

Translations

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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

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snake (third-person singular simple present snakes, present participle snaking, simple past and past participle snaked)

  1. (intransitive) To follow or move in a winding route.
    Synonyms: slither, wind
    The path snaked through the forest.
    The river snakes through the valley.
    • 1996 September 24, Mark Addinall, “Football fever...”, in aus.personals‎[3] (Usenet):
      Any Brisbane female interested in snaking down a few beers whilst watching the footy on a big screen?
    • 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.
  2. (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.
    He snaked my DVD!
    • 2001 April 5, Hyena, “Home made supercharger ?”, in aus.cars‎[4] (Usenet):
      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 !
  3. (transitive) To clean using a plumbing snake.
  4. (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
  5. (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.
  6. (MLE) To inform; to rat.
    He says he didn't snake and I believe him.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old English snaca, from Proto-West Germanic *snakō.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)

  1. snake
  2. serpent

Descendants

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  • English: snake (see there for further descendants)
  • Scots: snake

References

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