Word.ws English Dictionary

snake

/sneɪk/

snake noun: any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues. Also the ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.

snake: any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

snake (plural snakes)

  1. Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.
    • 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
    Synonyms:
    Joe Blake, serpent
  2. (figuratively) A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.
    • Near-synonyms: rat; see also Thesaurus:betrayer
    • 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 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC
  3. A tool for unclogging plumbing.
  4. A tool to aid cable pulling.
    Synonyms:
    wirepuller
  5. (Australia, UK) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
  6. (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.
    Synonyms:
    trouser snake
  7. A series of Bézier curves.
  8. The seventh Lenormand card.
  9. (Multicultural-London-English, African-American Vernacular) An informer; a rat.
    • 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 back2017 April 7, “War Dub”, performed by Little T (Josh Tate)
  10. (slang) A person who interferes with another's run or who takes their run out of turn.

Verb

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.
    • The path snaked through the forest.
    • The river snakes through the valley.
    Synonyms:
    slither, wind
  2. (Australia, slang, transitive) To steal slyly.
    • 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)
  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. 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. (Multicultural-London-English, African-American Vernacular) To inform; to rat; often with out.
    • He says he didn't snake and I believe him.
  7. (slang) To interfere with another's run or to take one's run out of turn.
    • Snaking is the number one way to get hurt and/or get rejected by existing scenes at your local skatepark or street spot.2026 May 5 (last accessed), “Skate Etiquette | Sidewalk Basics”, in Sidewalk Magazine, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2026

Proper noun capitalized: Snake

Snake (countable and uncountable, plural Snakes)

  1. The sixth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
  2. An early computer game, later popular on mobile phones, in which the player attempts to manoeuvre a perpetually growing snake so as to collect food items and avoid colliding with walls or the snake's tail.
  3. A surname.
  4. A river in the northwestern United States, tributary to the Columbia.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Snake Island.

Also used as

snake is also the ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.

snake is also the ellipsis of black snake.

snake is also the ellipsis of snake game.

snake meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

snake in Hindi

legless reptile
साँप sā̃p, सर्प sarp, नाग nāg

snake in Tamil

legless reptile
பாம்பு pāmpu, சருப்பம் caruppam

snake in Marathi

legless reptile
साप sāp, नाग nāg, सर्प sarpa

snake in Urdu

legless reptile
سان٘پ sā̃p, مار mār
More languagesFewer languages
snake in Bengali
সাপ śap
snake in Telugu
పాము pāmu, మెలికలు తిరుగు melikalu tirugu
snake in Malayalam
പാമ്പ് pāmpŭ, പാന്വ് pānvŭ, സർപ്പം saṟppaṁ, പന്നഗം pannagaṁ
snake in Kannada
ಹಾವು hāvu
snake in Punjabi
ਸੱਪ sappa, ਸਰਪ sarap, سپ pnb
snake in Gujarati
સાપ sāp, સાપણ sāpaṇ, એરુ eru
snake in Odia
ସାପ sāpa, ଉଡ଼ଙ୍ଗ uṛaṅga
snake in Sanskrit
सर्प sarpa, नाग nāga, उरङ्ग uraṅga, अहि áhi
snake in Sinhala
සර්පයා sarpayā
snake in Assamese
সাপ xap
snake in Nepali
साँप sā̃p, साप sāp, सर्प sarpa
snake in Pashto
مار mār
snake in Tagalog
ahas
snake in Arabic
ثُعْبَان ṯuʕbān, حَنَش ḥanaš, حَيَّة ḥayya, أَفْعَى ʔafʕā
snake in Malay
ular, cewe, cewe ceblek
snake in Indonesian
ular
snake in Persian
مَار mār, مار mâr, مُر mor
snake in Thai
งู nguu, เลื้อย lʉ́ai
snake in Vietnamese
rắn
snake in Myanmar
မြွေ mrwe
Dhivehi
ހަރުފަ harufa
Kashmiri
سَرُپھ saruph, سَرُف saruf
Dzongkha
སྦུལ sbul

Examples of snake in a sentence

  • 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):
  • 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:

All 40 example sentences with snake

Synonyms of snake

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of snake

Forms of snake

Noun
pluralsnakes
alternative Internet childish (humorous)snek
Verb
third-person singular presentsnakes
present participlesnaking
past participlesnaked
pastsnaked
Proper noun
pluralSnakes

Plural of snake: snakes

Origin of snake

From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“slider, snake”), from *snakan (“to creep, slide”), related to Old High German snahhan (“to sneak, slide”). Compare also Proto-Germanic *snēkô (“creeper, crawler”). Cognate with German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Danish snog (“grass snake”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Norwegian Nynorsk snåk (“viper, adder”), Faroese snákur (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”).

Words formed from snake

Phrases with snake

149 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with snake

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about snake

What does snake mean?
Snake means any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.
What is snake in Hindi?
Snake in Hindi is साँप (sā̃p), सर्प (sarp), नाग (nāg). See Snake meaning in Hindi.
How do you use snake in a sentence?
Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.
What part of speech is snake?
Snake can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce snake?
Snake is pronounced /sneɪk/ (UK).
What is the plural of snake?
The plural of snake is snakes.

Words near snake in the dictionary

  1. snailshells
  2. Snailwell
  3. snaily
  4. Snainton
  5. Snaith
  6. snake
  7. snake and pygmy pie
  8. snake and pygmy pies
  9. snake bean
  10. snake beans
  11. snake bite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snake (page history and authors); Snake (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)-Back ache-snake.wav, En-us-snake.ogg, En-au-snake.ogg.

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