anaconda

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“
Twice smaller anacondas had attacked his dogs; one was carried under water--for the anaconda is a water- loving serpent--but he rescued it.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun Either of two nonvenomous, semiaquatic snakes (Eunectes murinus or E. noteus) of tropical South America that kill their prey by suffocating it in their coils. E. murinus, the giant anaconda, can attain lengths from 5 to 9 meters (16.4 to 29.5 feet).

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Examples (50)

  • In the country near Rio there are great snakes called the anaconda, a sort of boa-constrictor on a large scale. —  Sketches From My Life
  • The remaining alligator became involved in a controversy with an anaconda, and joined the melee in the centre of the flaming apartment A number of birds which were caged in the upper part of the building were set free by some charitably inclined person at the first alarm of fire, and at intervals they flew out. —  Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum
  • Other confiscated critters included a 10-foot yellow anaconda, a 6-foot carpet python and a
  • He then showed off the remains of a recently discovered anaconda, and then the fossils of fish and crabs, too.
  • Jonathan Bloch, the study's co-author and the Florida museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology, said a backbone from a five-meter anaconda was about the size of a silver dollar while a backbone from Titanoboa was the size of "a large Florida grapefruit". —  AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Perhaps alteration of Sinhalese henakandayā, whip snake.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. In the 18th century also spelled anacondo, anocondo; mentioned by Ray (1693) in the form anacandaia, as if the native name in Ceylon; but the word has not been traced in Singhalesc or elsewhere.
 

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/ænəˈkɑndə/
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