cottonmouth
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cottonmouth
1825–35, cotton + mouth, so called from the whiteness of its lips and mouth
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:
Fortune said he’d seen plenty of cottonmouth snakes and rattlesnakes in Texas, and he’d once come across a 5-foot bullsnake.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 3, 2023
Of these snakes, two were venomous—one copperhead and one cottonmouth.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2022
And the previous homeowners had found venomous snakes on the property, including a cottonmouth coiled by the pool.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2022
This federally owned land, essentially a scrubby marsh with partially waterlogged woodland, home to bears and cottonmouth snakes, spans around 250,000 acres.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 7, 2019
They threw rocks to scare away the poisonous cottonmouth snakes, then dropped into the water from tree branches or dove from muddy banks.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
They can even handle the bite from venomous snakes such as cottonmouths, timber rattlesnakes and copperheads.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 24, 2022
The world hosts hundreds of wildly different venomous snake species, from brightly banded coral snakes to camouflaged cottonmouths.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 26, 2021
Rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, coral snakes—bites from all will be painful at least, deadly at most.
From Golf Digest ● May 3, 2018
And then there are the snakes: king snakes, copperheads, banded water snakes and cottonmouths, which also swim.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2016
It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
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.
