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:
A Gaboon viper — a highly venomous snake native to the rainforests and savannas of sub-Saharan Africa — was on the loose in a Santa Ana neighborhood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
The snake hunt was featured on TV newscasts and in newspaper articles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 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
During fieldwork one night in 2006, Chris Austin, a professor and curator of herpetology at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science, encountered a snake in New Guinea that he did not recognize.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
We divvied up the snake with the ax for the hens to feed on and buried the head.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
In 2006, readers learned how to properly transport snakes on a plane, and whether George W. Bush was shrinking.
From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2026
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
The two began collaborating to better understand New Guinea's poorly studied snakes, and they have continued working together on the group ever since.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
She had the clear upper hand, being both invisible and a badger, a natural adversary to snakes.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
Vines snaked through broken windows on abandoned buildings, street after street.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
Cars honking their horns snaked through the capital of the small South American country that does not usually get a lot of attention for anything.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
Dozens of wires snaked around three electronic boxes, one of them connected to an old-school car battery for supplemental power.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
Turner snaked through the gauntlet, as his teammates playfully slapped and shoved him around.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
The few flimsy trees were naked of leaves, and a long scar snaked across the packed dirt.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
The new Madring street circuit is in an unprepossessing location, snaking around an exhibition centre near the Spanish capital's international airport, about a 15-minute drive from the city with no traffic.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
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
It started with a 75-yard pick-six from King Rich on a snaking sideline return that gave Orange Lutheran a lead they never conceded.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026
Twentysomethings clad in Deftones and Pikachu tees, Dodgers caps, and beaded bracelets joined the procession, snaking from the dance floor through the bar area and back down again.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026
From his palm, a ribbon of black spilled out, snaking across the floor and seeping into the walls.
From "Aru Shah and the End of Time" by Roshani Chokshi
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.
