snake

English Online Dictionary. What means snake‎? What does snake mean?

English

Alternative forms

• (internet slang, childish, jocular) snek

Etymology

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“snake”), derived via Proto-Germanic *snakô from Proto-Germanic *snakaną (“to crawl”).

See also German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Danish snog (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”); also Old High German snahhan.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: snāk, IPA^(key): /sneɪk/
• Rhymes: -eɪk

Noun

snake (plural snakes)

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

   Synonyms: joe blake, serpent
4. A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

   Hypernyms: jerk < person; see also Thesaurus:jerk

   Hyponym: snake in the grass

   Near-synonym: rat
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. (African-American Vernacular, MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:informant
12. (finance, historical) Ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.
13. Ellipsis of black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Maori: neke
• → Sranan Tongo: sneki

Translations

Verb

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
2. (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.
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

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. (African-American Vernacular, MLE) To inform; to rat; often with out.

Derived terms

• snake out

Translations

See also

• anguine

Further reading

• snake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• kaens, akens, nakes, skean, Keans, sneak, Kasen, kenas, asken, Skåne

Middle English

Alternative forms

• snak
• snaca (Early Middle English)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsnaːk(ə)/

Noun

snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)

1. snake
2. serpent

Descendants

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

References

• “snāke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-03.