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colubrine

[kol-uh-brahyn, -brin, -yuh-]
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adjective
  1. of or resembling a snake; snakelike.
  2. belonging or pertaining to the subfamily Colubrinae, comprising the typical colubrid snakes.
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Origin of colubrine

1520–30; < Latin colubrīnus, equivalent to colubr- (stem of coluber) snake + -īnus -ine1
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for colubrine

Historical Examples

  • Perhaps the most curious of the colubrine snakes is the egg-eating snake of South Africa.

    The Animal World, A Book of Natural History

    Theodore Wood

  • There is always the colubrine equivalent of the personal equation to be taken into consideration.

    Jungle Folk

    Douglas Dewar

British Dictionary definitions for colubrine

colubrine

adjective
  1. of or resembling a snake
  2. of, relating to, or belonging to the Colubrinae, a subfamily of harmless colubrid snakes
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Word Origin

C16: from Latin colubrīnus, from coluber snake
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012