Etymology

rattlesnake

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Today it means: Any of various venomous American snakes, of genera Crotalus and Sistrurus, having a rattle at the end of its tail. Full definition →

English snake ← Middle English snake ← Old English snaca
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The story

  1. Englishrattle
  2. Proto-Germanic*sneganą
  3. Proto-Germanic*snakaną
  4. Proto-West Germanic*snakan
  5. Proto-West Germanic*snakō
  6. Old Englishsnaca
  7. Middle Englishsnake
  8. Englishsnake
  9. English todayrattlesnake

From rattle + snake.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.