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• anaconda
  anaconda

  noun

  a South American boa, Eunectes murinus, that often grows to a length of more than 25 feet (7.6 meters).
• Anaconda
  Anaconda

  noun

  a city in SW Montana.

anaconda

¹ American  

[an-uh-kon-duh] / ˌæn əˈkɒn də /

noun

• anacondas
  plural

1. a South American boa, Eunectes murinus, that often grows to a length of more than 25 feet (7.6 meters).

2. any large boa.

3. Cards. a variety of poker in which each player is dealt seven cards, discards two, and turns up one of the remaining five before each betting round.

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Anaconda ² American  

[an-uh-kon-duh] / ˌæn əˈkɒn də /

noun

1. a city in SW Montana.

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anaconda British  

/ ˌænəˈkɒndə /

noun

1. a very large nonvenomous arboreal and semiaquatic snake, Eunectes murinus, of tropical South America, which kills its prey by constriction: family Boidae (boas)

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• anacondas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of anaconda

1760–70; misapplication of a name originally used for a snake of Sri Lanka; earlier anacandaia < Sinhalese henakandayā kind of snake

Explanation

An anaconda is an enormous South American boa snake that's a great swimmer. Adult anacondas are large enough to prey on deer, capybaras, and even young jaguars. Anacondas spend most of their time in swamps and rivers. They are non-venomous, constrictor snakes that suffocate their prey and eat it whole. The green anaconda is the largest snake in the world by weight, with females growing up to 500 pounds and about 17 feet long. It is one of very few snakes that is theoretically big enough to eat a human — but that has never happened. Etymologists have various theories about the origin of the word anaconda, including the Tamil anaikkonda, "having killed an elephant."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

anaconda Anaconda anacondas

A research group led by the University of Cambridge examined giant anaconda fossils found in South America and determined that these snakes reached their full body size about 12.4 million years ago.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2025

Karine Aigner spotted a yellow anaconda coiled around the snout of a yacaré caiman while leading a tour group.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2024

However, in this case, Fry and his coauthors argued that the genetic differences between the three current species of yellow anaconda are not great enough to support separate species status.

From National Geographic ● Feb. 16, 2024

In 2021, researchers discovered two female California Condors were able to reproduce without males while two years earlier, a female anaconda got pregnant by herself in a Boston aquarium.

From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2023

“Your mom would do that too, with one pinky, while fighting off that anaconda with her other hand. To protect you, she’d do just about anything.”

From "A Bird Will Soar" by Alison Green Myers

Anaconda bought December 2026 and December 2027 Brent futures at the start of the year — on a continuous basis the global benchmark is up 73% this year.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026

"Anaconda," the new meta comedy action flick starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black as friends trying to reboot the original 1997 horror film, finished in fifth place with $10 million.

From Barron's ● Jan. 4, 2026

He added that officials had since widened their search area to include national forest land outside Anaconda, a town with a population of almost 10,000 in south-western Montana that is surrounded by dense, mountainous terrain.

From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2025

For Anaconda and neighboring towns, the ripple effects of this violence are deeply personal.

From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2025

The plant at Anaconda, Montana, is expected to produce an ample supply in the future.

From The Economic Aspect of Geology by C. K. (Charles Kenneth) Leith

There, they don’t have to worry about their natural predators, like jaguars and anacondas.

From Slate ● May 27, 2026

On a swamp called the Floating Forest, deep in the Amazon, Paul Rosolie is looking for anacondas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026

When the team combined these measurements with fossil data from other South American sites, they concluded that ancient anacondas measured roughly four to five metres, a size comparable to today's snakes.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2025

The analysis supported the conclusion that early anacondas averaged four to five meters when they first emerged during the Miocene.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2025

I also loved stories of wolves, bears, and wolverines in North America and Canada, jaguars anacondas and sloths in South America, orangutans, Indian elephants, and tapirs in Asia, and so on.

From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall