snake
Americannoun
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snakes
plural
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any of numerous limbless, scaly, elongate reptiles of the suborder Serpentes, comprising venomous and nonvenomous species inhabiting tropical and temperate areas.
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a treacherous person; an insidious enemy.
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Building Trades.
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Also called auger, plumber's snake. (in plumbing) a device for dislodging obstructions in curved pipes, having a head fed into the pipe at the end of a flexible metal band.
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Also called wirepuller. a length of resilient steel wire, for threading through an electrical conduit so that wire can be pulled through after it.
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verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
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to wind or make (one's course, way, etc.) in the manner of a snake.
to snake one's way through a crowd.
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to drag or haul, especially by a chain or rope, as a log.
noun
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any reptile of the suborder Ophidia (or Serpentes ), typically having a scaly cylindrical limbless body, fused eyelids, and a jaw modified for swallowing large prey: includes venomous forms such as cobras and rattlesnakes, large nonvenomous constrictors (boas and pythons), and small harmless types such as the grass snake
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Also called: snake in the grass. a deceitful or treacherous person
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anything resembling a snake in appearance or action
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(in the European Union) a former system of managing a group of currencies by allowing the exchange rate of each of them only to fluctuate within narrow limits
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a tool in the form of a long flexible wire for unblocking drains
verb
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(intr) to glide or move like a snake
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(tr) to haul (a heavy object, esp a log) by fastening a rope around one end of it
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(tr) (often foll by out) to pull jerkily
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(tr) to move in or follow (a sinuous course)
Usage
What else does snake mean? Snake can be slang for a person who acts in a deceitful, underhanded, or backstabbing way.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of snake
before 1000; Middle English (noun); Old English snaca; cognate with Middle Low German snake, Old Norse snākr
Explanation
A snake is a long reptile without legs that moves by undulating, arching the bones in its back and pushing against the ground. A pet snake is easy to care for, unless you're squeamish about feeding it mice. Like other reptiles, snakes are covered in smooth scales. Unlike most, snakes have flexible jaws that allow them to eat things much wider than their own narrow bodies — if you see a big lump in the middle of a garter snake's body, you can be pretty sure it's just eaten a mouse. Because so many people are afraid of snakes (the vast majority of which are not poisonous), the word has also come to mean "treacherous or deceitful person." Snake is a verb as well, meaning "move like a snake."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We are asking the public to please be aware of your surroundings. If you see the snake, DO NOT approach or attempt to handle it,” the department said in a post on social media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
At night, queues snake around the block outside nightclubs where DJ’s spin thumping house music for big-spending revelers, their faces sculpted by surgery and tanned by the sun.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
Researchers have named a newly identified snake species from New Guinea Lielaphis slashi, or Slash's groundsnake.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
The yellow-bellied sea snake is one of about 65 to 75 species of “true” sea snakes, meaning they live their entire lives in the water and give birth to live young there, Crowell said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
But he didn’t seem to like the idea of sharing that hole with the snake any more than I did.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
The venom peptides that snakes and snails use are built as closed loops, which is what lets them survive intact.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
It's here, in the spaghetti-like wiring which snakes through a data centre where copper is targeted for replacement.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
In previous cases, the snakes washed ashore when water temperatures dropped to a point that they became sick and lethargic, Pauly said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
Brazilian syncopation snakes through Ted Tetzlaff’s shadowy lighting, giving the scene a unique tension.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
When Eblis walked up and kissed the king on his shoulders, two things happened: The devil disappeared into a sudden burst of smoke, and the king grew two snakes from his shoulders.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
My vista for this year’s eclipse was the cliffs of Mirador de Las Lomas, 45 minutes outside León, where a line of seekers snaked along the cliffside in either direction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Later that afternoon, outside the ballroom, the line to meet Stone snaked along her merch table.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
As for the social media star, Watson wonders if he'll still draw in as many YouTube viewers or if some fans will feel like he has "snaked" his fellow Sidemen.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
The line to see Gomez’s replica of L.A.’s graffiti towers, “Oceanwide Plaza,” snaked through the gallery’s courtyard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2026
He woke up the next morning in his car, having slept the whole night while parked in Rock Creek Park, a wooded area that snaked through the center of the city.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
After a five-hour wait for petrol, Mongolian pensioner Nasanjargal is still 10 places from the pump, with dozens of cars behind him in a queue snaking into the arid steppe.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
The clicky videos, the snaking lines of customers, the grandiose launch parties—it echoes similar consumer hype trends of the past, like McDonald’s hyperviral Travis Scott Meal or infamous Rick and Morty–fueled Szechuan Sauce incident.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
Retrials and appeals are snaking through the system.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
As he approached the peak of Everest in May 2019, he snapped a photo of a snaking queue of climbers all waiting to reach the summit.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
Kabul was eerily silent, quilted in white, tendrils of smoke snaking up here and there.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
