adv. and a. [f. VIPER.]
A. adv. In or after the manner of a viper. Only in allusive use (see VIPER 3).
1630. Drayton, Muses Eliz., x. 117. This cruell kinde thus Viper-like deuoure That fruitfull soyle which them too fully fed.
1646. J. Hall, Poems, I. 43.
| Had not thy mother born thee toothlesse thou | |
| Hadst eaten Viper-like a passage through. |
1677. Horneck, Gt. Law Consid., iv. (1704), 141. If Absalom had not had a kingdom in his eye, he would hardly have,… viperlike, preyed upon the bowels that did feed him.
a. 1700. Dryden, P. S. to Hist. League, Wks. 1821, XVII. 162. The government in which they live, and which, viper-like, they would devour.
1729. Madden, Themistocles, IV. i. (ed. 3), 44. Can I live By Athens’ Ruin, working out my Way Into the World, most Viper-like, by, gnawing E’en thro’ my Mother’s Bowels?
1771. Kelly, Clementina, III.
| They’ll else blast all the comforts of your life, | |
| And, viper-like, with death return your fondness. |
1897. Flandrau, Harvard Episodes, 277. He couldn’t bring himself at that late day to arise, viper like, from the hearthstone and smite.
B. adj. Like or resembling a viper.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 247. The genus Echis consists of but one species (E. carinata)…. It is a viper-like snake.
1903. Westm. Gaz., 3 March, 2/1. The noise of the little brass viper-like being in the corner as it whirred and hissed and snapped its teeth.
