snae´like´

snake «snayk», noun, verb, snaked, snak|ing.

–n.

1. a long, slender, crawling reptile without limbs and with a scaly skin and narrow, forked tongue. Some snakes are poisonous. These have poison glands connected with a pair of fangs which inject prey with poison when the snake bites. The snakes comprise a suborder of reptiles. »

Snakes have tails, which is not to say they are all tail (Scientific American).

2. Figurative. a sly, treacherous person: »

I am not…a snake, to bite when I have learned to love (Rudyard Kipling).

3. anything resembling a snake in form or movement.

4. a long, flexible, metal tool used by plumbers to clean out a drain.

5. Military. a long pipe filled with explosives, used for blowing up all the mines in a field.

6. Finance. a joint-float system of currencies allowed to fluctuate within narrowly defined limits: »

The so-called European snake…bound France,…Germany, the Benelux countries, Sweden, Norway and Denmark to hold their currencies within a 4.5% range of fluctuation against each other (Time).

–v.i.

1. to move, wind, or curve like a snake: »

The narrow road snaked through the mountains. Since the train was snaking along at a brisk clip, the diner swayed from side to side (New Yorker).

2. to creep along stealthily like a snake.

–v.t.

1. U.S. Informal. to drag; haul, especially along the ground with chains or ropes: »

Old Sam cut down most of the virgin timber on his farm, snaked it out by mules to his own sawmills... (Time).

2. U.S. Informal. to yank; jerk: »

to snake a car out of a ditch.

3. to clean out (a drain) with a plumber's snake.

╂[Old English snaca]

–snae´like´, adjective.