Also snakehead. [SNAKE sb.]
1. a. The North American plant Chelone glabra.
1845–50. Mrs. Lincoln, Lect. Bot., App. 88/2. Chelone glabra (snake-head).
1846–50. A. Wood, Class-bk. Bot., 400. Snake-head. Salt-rheum Weed…. A plant of brooks and wet places,… with flowers shaped much like the head of a snake.
b. The snake’s head or common fritillary.
1884. G. Allen, Philistia, I. 146. ‘Has your brother ever sent you any of the fritillaries?’
‘What? snake-heads? Oh, boxes full of them.’
2. U.S. (See quots. and cf. SNAKE’S-HEAD 3).
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 315. Snake-head.… The end of an iron rail, which sometimes is thrown up in front of the car wheels, and passes through the cars.
1848–71. W. M. Gillespie, Man. Road-making, 305. Most American roads with longitudinal timbers have been laid with plate rails, so thin that their ends sometimes spring up so as to form ‘snake-heads.’
3. A representation of a snake’s head. Also attrib.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., iii. Two ships … whose long lines and snake-heads … bore witness to the piratical habits of their owner.
1887. Archit. Soc. Dict., VII. 96/2. Snake head Molding.
4. A fish (Ophiocephalus) or turtle having a snake-like head.
1897. in Cent. Dict.
