snake

plural snakes · alternative Internet childish humorous snek

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

   1 more example

   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. figurativelyA person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

   Near-synonyms: rat; see also Thesaurus:betrayer

   3 more examples

   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

   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)

   [Friedrich] Kadgien—described by US interrogators as “not a true Nazi” but “a snake of the lowest sort”—subsequently left Switzerland for Brazil then Argentina, the paper said, where he started a company and a family and died in 1978, aged 71.

   2025 August 26, Jon Henley, “Old master painting looted by Nazis spotted in Argentinian property listing”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2025

   Synonyms: rat, backstabber, betrayer, cockatrice, double-crosser, quisling, rat, ratter

3. A tool for unclogging plumbing.

   Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake

4. A tool to aid cable pulling.

   Synonyms: wirepuller

5. AustraliaUKA flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
6. slangTrouser snake; the penis.

   Synonyms: trouser snake

7. mathematicsA series of Bézier curves.
8. cartomancyThe seventh Lenormand card.
9. Multicultural London EnglishAfrican-American VernacularAn informer; a rat.

   Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.

   1 more example

   Yo, bare people and the snakes, yeah, they're just grass / Next minute you're the mate, yeah / Next day stab in the back

   2017 April 7, “War Dub”, performed by Little T (Josh Tate)

   Synonyms: abaddon, accuser, beefer, bewrayer, bigmouth, blabber, blabtale, blabtongue

10. slanghobbiesA person who interferes with another's run or who takes their run out of turn.
11. abbreviationellipsishistoricalbusinessEllipsis of snake in the tunnel.

    The snake failed to provide an anchor for currency stability and, through it, disinflation.

    2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69

12. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).
13. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of snake game.

present singular third person snakes · participle present snaking · participle past snaked · past snaked · alternative Internet childish humorous snek

1. intransitiveTo follow or move in a winding route.

   The path snaked through the forest.

   4 more examples

   The river snakes through the valley.

   Any Brisbane female interested in snaking down a few beers whilst watching the footy on a big screen?

   1996 September 24, Mark Addinall, “Football fever...”, in aus.personals (Usenet)

   =Every summer brought the prospect of the dragonships snaking their way upriver, each vessel filled with thirty or more rapacious thugs.

   1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 77

   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

   Synonyms: slither, wind

2. AustraliaslangtransitiveTo steal slyly.

   He snaked my DVD!

   1 more example

   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. transitiveTo clean using a plumbing snake.
4. USinformalTo 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. nauticalTo 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 EnglishAfrican-American VernacularTo inform; to rat; often with out.

   He says he didn't snake and I believe him.

7. slanghobbiesTo 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

plural Snakes

1. countableuncountableastrologyThe sixth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
2. countableuncountablevideo gamesAn 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. countableuncountableA surname.
4. A placename:
   1. countableuncountableA river in the northwestern United States, tributary to the Columbia.
   2. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Snake Island.