Word.ws English Dictionary

massasauga

Syllables: mas·sa·sau·ga/ˌmasəˈsɔːɡə/US/ˌmæsəˈsɔɡə/

massasauga noun: the rattlesnake Sistrurus catenatus (formerly Crotalinus catenatus) in the family Viperidae, found in three subspecies.

massasauga: the rattlesnake Sistrurus catenatus (formerly Crotalinus catenatus) in the family Viperidae, found...
Image: Tim Vickers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

massasauga (plural massasaugas)

  1. The rattlesnake Sistrurus catenatus (formerly Crotalinus catenatus) in the family Viperidae, found in three subspecies.
    • I hope in this paper to contribute something to the knowledge of the Prairie Rattlesnake, or Massasauga (Caudisona tergemina).1887 March, “The Massasauga and Its Habits”, in The American Naturalist, volume XXI, number 3, Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 212
    • The Massasauga is emphatically a species of the prairies and their swamps and marshes.1895, Leonhard [Hess] Stejneger, “The Massasauga. Sistrurus catenatus, (Rafinesque).”, in The Poisonous Snakes of North America. … From the Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1893, pages 337–487....
    Synonyms:
    Caudisona black rattlesnake

Synonyms of massasauga

  • Caudisona black rattlesnake

Forms of massasauga

pluralmassasaugas

Origin of massasauga

Possibly from the Mississagi River (Ontario, Canada), from French Mississague, Missisague (also Oumisagai, Michisaguek), from Ojibwe misiza:gi: (“inhabitant of the great river mouth, that is, the Mississagi River”). Doublet of Mississauga.

Questions about massasauga

What does massasauga mean?
Massasauga means the rattlesnake Sistrurus catenatus (formerly Crotalinus catenatus) in the family Viperidae, found in three subspecies.
What part of speech is massasauga?
Massasauga is a noun.
How do you pronounce massasauga?
Massasauga is pronounced /ˌmasəˈsɔːɡə/ (UK).
What is the plural of massasauga?
The plural of massasauga is massasaugas.

Words near massasauga in the dictionary

  1. Massari
  2. Massaris
  3. Massaro
  4. Massaros
  5. massas
  6. massasauga
  7. massasaugas
  8. Massat
  9. Massaua
  10. massaul
  11. massaulchee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: massasauga (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-massasauga.wav.

Cite this entry: “massasauga.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/massasauga. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.