snake

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

1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates:

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.

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

A legless reptile of the suborder Serpentes with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue.

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.

1838, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby:

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

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

A person who acts deceitfully for social gain.

(UK, Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.

(mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.

(cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.

Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.

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

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

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

2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69:

snake in the tunnel
snake in the tunnel#English

(finance, historical) Short for snake in the tunnel.

Short for black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).

→ Maori: neke

→ Sranan Tongo: sneki

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Snake.wav

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“snake”) (compare German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”)), derived via Proto-Germanic *snakô from Proto-Germanic *snakaną (“to crawl”) (compare Old High German snahhan), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neg- (“to crawl; a creeping thing”). Cognate with Sanskrit नाग (nāgá, “snake”)). Doublet of nāga.


snake

The path snaked through the forest.

The river snakes through the valley.

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

1996 September 24, Mark Addinall, “Football fever...”, in aus.personals (Usenet):

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.

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

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

He snaked my DVD!

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 !

2001 April 5, Hyena, “Home made supercharger ?”, in aus.cars (Usenet):

(transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.

(transitive) To clean using a plumbing snake.

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

(US, informal) To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; often with out.

(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.

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

en-verb

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

snakes (present singular third-person)
snaking (participle present)
snaked (participle past)
snaked (past)