Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having a rattle, as a rattlesnake; specifically, pertaining to or having the characters of the Crotalinæ or Crotalidæ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Zoöl.) Resembling, or pertaining to, the Crotalidae, or Rattlesnake family.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective zoology Resembling, or relating to, the Crotalidae, or rattlesnake family.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Crotalus +‎ -ine

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word crotaline.

Examples

  • There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun.

    Calde of the Long Sun Wolfe, Gene 1994

  • There was a strange swelling beneath her ribs; through her mind a swirl of sounds she had never heard and sights she had not seen: the rumbling hoofbeats of cavalry and the booming of big guns. the terrifying roars of Sphigx's lions, the silver voices of trumpets, and the sharp crotaline clatter of a buzz gun.

    Calde of the Long Sun Wolfe, Gene 1994

  • Death resulting typically from crotaline poisoning occurred in two instances, one the fourteen-year-old boy, who was struck by a large rattlesnake and died in six hours, despite skilled and prompt medical attendance; the other, a Dr. Post, into whose veins, it would appear, the poison entered immediately, since a jet of blood spurted from the wound inflicted by the captive rattlesnake.

    The Poison Bugaboo 1910

  • Setting the boy's lesser age and resistant power against the fact of the laborer's being bitten in a worse place (for crotaline venom is much more effective in an upper limb or extremity than in a lower), we have a fairly illustrative instance of the relative merits of alcoholic and non-alcoholic measures.

    The Poison Bugaboo 1910

  • I have heard of similar recurrent effects from crotaline poisoning, but none scientifically attested, as is this phenomenon.

    The Poison Bugaboo 1910

  • The venom is related to snake poison, but is neither crotaline nor elapine.

    The Poison Bugaboo 1910

  • There is nothing in these data to indicate that a full-grown man in normal health, and with proper treatment, will succumb to crotaline poisoning unless the venom enters a vein, direct.

    The Poison Bugaboo 1910

  • (1730-6) -1755 OW hylobatine gibbon OW crotaline rattlesnake hystricine porcupine

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol IV No 1 1977

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Rattlesnake-like.

    December 8, 2006

  • That rattle is dire serpentine -

    Your comfort and his don't align.

    The gauntlet is flung

    Before you are stung

    If the snake that you rile's crotaline.

    September 1, 2016