How do you use the word "snake" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "snake": Seen from the sky, the river looked like a huge snake. The mere sight of a snake makes her sick.

Snake Meaning

/sneɪk/

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounAny of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptile with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues.

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

Sentence Examples

Seen from the sky, the river looked like a huge snake.

The mere sight of a snake makes her sick.

A snake coiled up in the grass

CEFR Practice Quiz

We saw a long, legless ____ slither under the rock in the desert.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

We saw a long green ____ slithering through the tall grass in the meadow this morning.

Word Origin & History

From Middle English snake, from Old English 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”).

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips." — 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates:

"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:

"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:

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