colubrine
Americanadjective
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of or resembling a snake; snakelike.
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belonging or pertaining to the subfamily Colubrinae, comprising the typical colubrid snakes.
adjective
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of or resembling a snake
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of, relating to, or belonging to the Colubrinae, a subfamily of harmless colubrid snakes
Etymology
Origin of colubrine
1520–30; < Latin colubrīnus, equivalent to colubr- (stem of coluber ) snake + -īnus -ine 1
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.
Yet the old instinct which has made the name of Englishman glorious in the past was there, in the audience before him, and there was "immense cheering," relieved by some slight colubrine demonstrations.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 by Various
But the vital difference is that between all these poisons of the pit- vipers and the poisons of the colubrine snakes, such as the cobra and the coral-snake.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Roosevelt, Theodore
Natrix, nā′triks, n. a genus of colubrine snakes.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various
Poisonous snakes are of several different families, but the most poisonous ones, those which are dangerous to man, belong to the two great families of the colubrine snakes and the vipers.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Roosevelt, Theodore
Unlike the vipers, the colubrine poisonous snakes have small fangs, and their poison, though on the whole even more deadly, has entirely different effects, and owes its deadliness to entirely different qualities.
From Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Roosevelt, Theodore
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.
