snake

• (internet slang, childish, jocular) snek

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“snake”), derived via Proto-Germanic *snakô from Proto-Germanic *snakaną (“to crawl”).

See also German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Danish snog (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”); also Old High German snahhan.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: snāk, IPA^(key): /sneɪk/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

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• Audio (General American):

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• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Rhymes: -eɪk

snake (plural snakes)

2. Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptile with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.

   Synonyms: joe blake, serpent

   • 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates‎^[1]:

     The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.

   • 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:

     After dark the train is a lighted snake, as, even when the passengers' lights are out, each carriage has a side-light in the middle just under the eaves.

4. A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

   Hypernyms: jerk < person; see also Thesaurus:jerk

   Hyponym: snake in the grass

   Near-synonym: rat

   • 1838, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby‎^[2]:

     Mrs. Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile, as Henrietta Petowker.

   • 2021, Peter McKenna, 5:51 from the start, in Kin, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Frank Kinsella (Aidan Gillen):

     Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.

5. A tool for unclogging plumbing.

   Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake

6. A tool to aid cable pulling.

   Synonym: wirepuller

7. (UK, Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
8. (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.

   Synonym: trouser snake

9. (mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.
10. (cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.
11. (African-American Vernacular, MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:informant

    Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.

    • 2017 April 7, “War Dub”, performed by Little T (Josh Tate):

      Yo, bare people and the snakes, yeah, they're just grass / Next minute you're the mate, yeah / Next day stab in the back

12. (finance, historical) Ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.
    • 2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69:

      The snake failed to provide an anchor for currency stability and, through it, disinflation.

13. Ellipsis of black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).

• → Maori: neke
• → Sranan Tongo: sneki

snake (third-person singular simple present snakes, present participle snaking, simple past and past participle snaked)

1. (intransitive) To follow or move in a winding route.

   Synonyms: slither, wind

   The path snaked through the forest.

   The river snakes through the valley.

   • 1996 September 24, Mark Addinall, “Football fever...”, in aus.personals‎^[3] (Usenet):

     Any Brisbane female interested in snaking down a few beers whilst watching the footy on a big screen?

   • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, pages 59–60:

     Opened in June of that year [1880], the station was the southern terminus of the much-lamented Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (the S&D or 'Slow and Dirty'), which snaked its way down from Bath.

2. (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.

   He snaked my DVD!

   • 2001 April 5, Hyena, “Home made supercharger ?”, in aus.cars‎^[4] (Usenet):

     Although it wouldn't be the first time some one patented an idea that I'd had a year earlier. […] Someone already has :) […] F*CK ME !! Snaked again !

3. (transitive) To clean using a plumbing snake.
4. (US, informal) To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; often with out.
   • November 27 1835, N.B. St. John, letter to George Thompson

     his wife and children shall not be forced to flee from the hearth of a friend, lest they should be snaked out by men in civic authority

5. (nautical) To wind round spirally, as a large rope with a smaller, or with cord, the small rope lying in the spaces between the strands of the large one; to worm.
6. (African-American Vernacular, MLE) To inform; to rat; often with out.

   He says he didn't snake and I believe him.

• snake out

• anguine

• snake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• kaens, akens, nakes, skean, Keans, sneak, Kasen, kenas, asken, Skåne

• snak
• snaca (Early Middle English)

From Old English snaca, from Proto-West Germanic *snakō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsnaːk(ə)/

snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)

1. snake
2. serpent

• English: snake (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: snake

• “snāke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 3 April 2018.