a. [f. SNAKE sb.] Like or resembling a snake or that of a snake; having the characteristic form of a snake; long and slender.
Common in the 19th cent.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., ii. 34. Aloft where Chesil lifts Her ridged snake-like sands, in wrecks and smould’ring drifts.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 83. My own pet May … is sliding her snake-like head into my hand.
1839. Lever, H. Lorrequer, xiii. The long procession wound its snake-like length down the narrow stair.
c. 1880. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., IV. 301. Many of the smaller Colubrine Snakes resemble some of the Snake-like Lizards.
fig. 1821. Byron, Juan, IV. ix. A long and snake-like life of dull decay.
1839–52. Bailey, Festus, 99. This is a snakelike world, And always hath its tail within its mouth.
