Word.ws English Dictionary

snapdragon

US/ˈsnæpdɹæɡən/

snapdragon noun: any plant of the genus Antirrhinum, with showy yellow, white or red flowers.

snapdragon: any plant of the genus Antirrhinum, with showy yellow, white or red flowers
Image: Sabina Bajracharya, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

snapdragon (countable and uncountable, plural snapdragons)

  1. (countable) Any plant of the genus Antirrhinum, with showy yellow, white or red flowers.
    • […]of kitchen-gardens, and straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees;1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “Toad's Adventures”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 166
    • Snapdragon leaves are asymmetrical with respect to dorsal-ventral surfaces (Fig. 6.6A).1998, Stephen H. Howell, Molecular Genetics of Plant Development, Cambridge University Press, page 146
    Synonyms:
    dragon flower
  2. (uncountable) A game in which raisins are snatched from a vessel containing burning brandy, and eaten; the substance snatched and eaten during the playing of the game; the vessel used for the game.
    • He bore a ſtrange kind of Appetite to Snap-dragon, and to the livid Snuffs of a burning Candle, which he would catch and ſwallow with an Agility, wonderful to conceive; [...]1704, [Jonathan Swift], “Section XI”, in A Tale of a Tub. […], London: […] John Nutt, […], →OCLC, page 198
    • "And now for snap-dragon," said Marian.
      "Exactly as you predicted, Mr. Graham," said Madeline; "blind-man's buff at a quarter past three, and snap-dragon at five."1862, Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm, Chapman and Hall, published 1868, page 159
    Synonyms:
    flapdragon

snapdragon meaning in Bengali, Arabic, Persian and Myanmar

snapdragon in Bengali

any plant of the genus Antirrhinum
গুল ময়মন gul moẏomon

snapdragon in Arabic

any plant of the genus Antirrhinum
أَنْف الْعِجْل ʔanf al-ʕijl

snapdragon in Persian

any plant of the genus Antirrhinum
گل میمون

snapdragon in Myanmar

any plant of the genus Antirrhinum
ကျားပါးစပ် kya:pa:cap

Examples of snapdragon in a sentence

  • Modern snapdragons aren't usually grown for their scent, although some do smell slightly spicy.2006, Lynn Coulter, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, University of North Carolina Press, page 59:
  • From the 16th to 19th centuries, no Christmas Eve celebration was complete without a hearty game of Snapdragon in the parlor.2014, Stephanie Barron, On Hosting Your Regency-Era Christmas Party, Soho Press, page 13:

Synonyms of snapdragon

Forms of snapdragon

pluralsnapdragons
alternative formsnap dragon
alternative formsnap-dragon

Plural of snapdragon: snapdragons

Origin of snapdragon

(1570s) From snap + dragon, from a fancied resemblance, especially by playing children that the flower is a dragon that opens its "mouth" when squeezed on the sides. Compare for this sense the etymology of Dutch leeuwenbek (“snapdragon”, literally “lion's mouth”) and German Löwenmaul. An ancient name was Old English hundeshéafod (literally “dog's head”). For the parlour game sense, the 1704 Swift quotation is apparently the earliest appearance in print. Other animal-based names for the flower are common; compare Greek σκυλάκι (skyláki, literally “puppy”) and Finnish leijonankita (literally “lion's mouth”).

Words formed from snapdragon

Phrases with snapdragon

Questions about snapdragon

What does snapdragon mean?
Snapdragon means any plant of the genus Antirrhinum, with showy yellow, white or red flowers.
What is snapdragon in Bengali?
Snapdragon in Bengali is গুল ময়মন (gul moẏomon). See Snapdragon meaning in Bengali.
How do you use snapdragon in a sentence?
Modern snapdragons aren't usually grown for their scent, although some do smell slightly spicy.
What part of speech is snapdragon?
Snapdragon is a noun.
How do you pronounce snapdragon?
Snapdragon is pronounced /ˈsnæpdɹæɡən/ (US).
What is the plural of snapdragon?
The plural of snapdragon is snapdragons.

Words near snapdragon in the dictionary

  1. Snapchattable
  2. Snapchatted
  3. Snapchatter
  4. Snapchatters
  5. Snapchatting
  6. snapdragon
  7. snapdragon double
  8. snapdragon doubles
  9. snapdragons
  10. snape
  11. Snape with Thorp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snapdragon (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-snapdragon.wav.

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