Word.ws English Dictionary

sidewinder

US/ˈsaɪd.waɪn.dɚ/

sidewinder noun: a North American rattlesnake, Crotalus cerastes, that inhabits lowland deserts.

sidewinder: a North American rattlesnake, Crotalus cerastes, that inhabits lowland deserts
Image: Victorrocha, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

sidewinder (plural sidewinders)

  1. A North American rattlesnake, Crotalus cerastes, that inhabits lowland deserts.
  2. (slang) A person who is untrustworthy and dangerous.
  3. (dated, slang) A heavy swinging blow from the side which disables an adversary.
  4. (colloquial) A pitcher who throws sidearm.
  5. A type of middle-distance deep-sea trawler widely used during the 1960s and 1970s.
  6. A rollercoaster element where riders enter a half-loop followed by a half-corkscrew, and exit perpendicular to the direction of entry.

Verb

sidewinder (third-person singular simple present sidewinders, present participle sidewindering, simple past and past participle sidewindered)

  1. Synonym of sidewind.
    Synonyms:
    sidewind

Proper noun capitalized: Sidewinder

Sidewinder (plural Sidewinders)

  1. Formally the AIM-9 Sidewinder, first used by the US in 1956, one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful short-range air-to-air missiles, still in use by many countries in the 2020s.

Synonyms of sidewinder

Forms of sidewinder

Noun
pluralsidewinders
Verb
third-person singular presentsidewinders
present participlesidewindering
past participlesidewindered
pastsidewindered
Proper noun
pluralSidewinders

Origin of sidewinder

From side + winder (“one who winds or wends, traveller”), from the sideways, looping manner in which they move.

Words formed from sidewinder

Questions about sidewinder

What does sidewinder mean?
Sidewinder means a North American rattlesnake, Crotalus cerastes, that inhabits lowland deserts.
What part of speech is sidewinder?
Sidewinder can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sidewinder?
Sidewinder is pronounced /ˈsaɪd.waɪn.dɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of sidewinder?
The plural of sidewinder is sidewinders.

Words near sidewinder in the dictionary

  1. sidewheels
  2. sidewhiskered
  3. sidewhiskers
  4. sidewind
  5. sidewinded
  6. sidewinder
  7. sidewindered
  8. sidewindering
  9. sidewinders
  10. sidewinding
  11. sidewinds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sidewinder (page history and authors); Sidewinder (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: En-au-sidewinder.ogg.

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