英和和英

語源

From 中期英語 snake, from 古期英語 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”).

発音

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: snāk, IPA: /sneɪk/
• 韻: -eɪk

名詞

snake (plural snakes)

1. Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.

   Synonyms: joe blake, serpent

   • 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates‎:

     The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.

   • 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:

     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.

2. (figurative) A person who acts deceitfully for personal or social gain; a treacherous person.

   Hypernyms: jerk < person; see also Thesaurus:jerk

   Hyponym: snake in the grass

   Near-synonyms: rat; see also Thesaurus:betrayer

   • 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 2021, Peter McKenna, 5:51 from the start, in Kin, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Frank Kinsella (Aidan Gillen):

     Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.

   • 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 5 September 2025:

     [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.

3. A tool for unclogging plumbing.

   Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake

4. A tool to aid cable pulling.

   Synonym: wirepuller

5. (UK, Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
6. (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.

   Synonym: trouser snake

7. (mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.
8. (cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.
9. (African-American Vernacular, MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:informant

   Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.

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

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

10. (skateboarding, slang) A person who interferes with another's run or who takes their run out of turn.
11. (finance, historical) Ellipsis of snake in the tunnel.
    • 2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69:

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

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

派生語

派生した語

• → Māori: neke
• → Mokilese: sinek
• → Sranan Tongo: sneki

動詞

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.

   Synonyms: slither, wind

   The path snaked through the forest.

   The river snakes through the valley.

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

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

   • 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:

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

   • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, pages 59–60:

     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.

2. (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.

   He snaked my DVD!

   • 2001 April 5, Hyena, “Home made supercharger ?”, in aus.cars‎ (Usenet):

     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 !

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. (nautical) 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. (African-American Vernacular, MLE) To inform; to rat; often with out.

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

7. (skateboarding, slang) To interfere with another's run or to take one's run out of turn.
   • 2026 May 5 (last accessed), “Skate Etiquette | Sidewalk Basics”, in Sidewalk Magazine‎, archived from the original on 10 March 2026:

     Snaking is the number one way to get hurt and/or get rejected by existing scenes at your local skatepark or street spot.

派生語

参考

• anguine

Further reading

• snake on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

アナグラム

• kaens, akens, nakes, skean, Keans, sneak, Kasen, kenas, asken, Skåne

語源

From 古期英語 snaca, from Proto-West Germanic *snakō.

発音

• IPA: /ˈsnaːk(ə)/

名詞

snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)

1. snake
2. serpent

派生した語

• English: snake (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: snake

参照

• “snāke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 3 April 2018.