Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several nonvenomous, semiaquatic snakes of the genus Eunectes of tropical South America that kill by coiling around their prey, especially E. murinus, which can attain a length of up to 9 meters (29.5 feet).
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A very large serpent of Ceylon, a kind of python, variously identified as Python reticulatus, or P. molurus, or P. tigris; hence, some Indian species of that genus. Also called
pimbeva and rock-snake. - noun Used mistakenly by Daudin as the specific name of a large serpent of South America, Boa murina (Linnæus), B. anacondo (Daudin), now generally known as Eunectes marinus; hence, some large South American boa, python, or rock-snake. In zoology the name is becoming limited to the Eunectes murinus.
- noun In popular language, any enormous serpent which is not venomous, but which envelops and crushes its prey in its folds; any of the numerous species of the families Boidæ and Pythonidæ; any boa constrictor.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A large South American snake of the Boa family (
Eunectes murinus ), which lives near rivers, and preys on birds and small mammals. The name is also applied to a similar large serpent (Python tigris ) of Ceylon.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of various large
nonvenomous snakes of the genus Eunectes, found mainly in northernSouth America . Their length can grow to as much as 5 m (15 ft). - noun by extension, slang, vulgar
Penis .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun large arboreal boa of tropical South America
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I was bit by an anaconda, which is in the constrictor family.
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"The anaconda is a little too ill-tempered for me."
Joe Strong, the Boy Fish or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank Vance Barnum
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Twice smaller anacondas had attacked his dogs; one was carried under waterfor the anaconda is a water-loving serpentbut he rescued it.
II. Up the Paraguay 1914
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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.
Through the Brazilian Wilderness Theodore Roosevelt 1888
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In the country near Rio there are great snakes called the anaconda,
Sketches From My Life Pasha, Hobart 1887
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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 By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden 1854
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To examine the anaconda, which is the heaviest species of snake in the world, Riddle was held horizontally by the zookeepers in the hallway in front of his exhibit while his eyes, mouth, and body were looked over.
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He adopted with success the "anaconda" system of strategy, and hemmed in the insurgents at every point, closing in the mountain-passes, and completely isolating them.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 Various
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It upheld the wounded snake, 'anaconda' system, it opposed the using of contrabands in any way, it urged, heart and soul, the protection of the property of rebels, it warred on confiscation in any form, it was ready with a negative to every proposition to energetically push the war, and finally its press is now opposing the settling our soldiers on the cotton-lands of the South.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy. Various
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Outbuilding the South of course meant tightening the "anaconda" system of blockade, in the entangling coils of which the South was caught already.
Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray William Charles Henry Wood 1905
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