Word.ws English Dictionary

snake case

snake case noun: the practice of writing identifiers using underscores to separate words.

Noun

snake case (uncountable)

  1. The practice of writing identifiers using underscores to separate words.
    • Some evidence shows that coders are better able to read code (their code and code written by others) when using snake_case, not camelCase naming.2018, Camille McCue, Sarah Guthals, Helping Kids with Coding For Dummies®, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 130
    • While both camelCase and snake_case are perfectly valid syntax in Java, the development community functions better when everyone adopts the same style convention.2020, Jeanne Boyarsky, Scott Selikoff, OCP Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 11 Programmer I: Study Guide, Exam 1Z0-815, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 49

Forms of snake case

alternative formsnake_case

Origin of snake case

Coined in 2004 by Ruby programmer Gavin Kistner, from its resemblance to the long body of a snake, and by analogy with other naming schemes based on lower- and upper-case letters.

Words formed from snake case

Questions about snake case

What does snake case mean?
Snake case means the practice of writing identifiers using underscores to separate words.
What part of speech is snake case?
Snake case is a noun.

Words near snake case in the dictionary

  1. snake bites
  2. snake bridge
  3. snake bridges
  4. snake cacti
  5. snake cactus
  6. snake case
  7. snake charmer
  8. snake charmers
  9. snake charming
  10. snake cucumber
  11. snake cucumbers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snake case (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.

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