boa constrictor

Noun

boa constrictor (plural boa constrictors)

1. A large tropical American snake, Boa constrictor, that kills its prey by squeezing them.
   • After him followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, and many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly hide of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground behind her.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
2. (broadly) Any large boa or python.
   • We found boa constrictors or pythons, whip snakes, the handsome but deadly tiger snake, so called from the peculiar marks on its skin[.]1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 95