[f. SNAKE sb.]
I. 1. trans. To twist or wind (hair) into the form of a snake. rare–1.
1653. J. Hall, Parad., 114. Who would not be sooner smitten with Tresses curiously snak’t.
b. Naut. (See quot. 1846.)
1815. Burney, Falconer’s Dict. Marine, 487/1. Snaking the Stays, or Ropes on the Quarters, instead of Netting.
1840. Adm. Winnington-Ingram, Hearts of Oak (1889), 27. Put ratlines on the backstays, snaked the stays, slung the topmasts with chain.
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 288. Snake, to pass small stuff across a seizing at the outer turns by way of finish. To attach lengths of rope between two stays or backstays.
c. To move, stretch out, (the head, etc.) after the manner of a snake. Also refl.
1887. D. C. Murray & Herman, One Traveller Returns, i. The girl snaking her head hither and thither in the eagerness of her regard.
1890. L. C. D’Oyle, Notches, 60. Then falling down full-length upon the ground he began to crawl, or rather ‘snake’ himself, up to the brow.
d. To cover or decorate with spirals or coils.
1887. Sporting Life, 22 June, 6/5. The portico pillars of the Mansion House were ‘snaked’ with richly coloured illumination lamps.
2. intr. To move in a creeping, crawling or stealthy manner suggestive of the movements of a snake.
1848. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 315. There’s some fellows…, and they are snaking up to the Grand Jury, on their bellies in the grass, kind of trying to hear what the Jury are talking about.
1848. Lowell, Biglow P., Ser. I. ix. Pomp he snaked up behin’, An’ creepin’ grad’lly close tu,… grabbed my leg.
1893. Capt. King, Foes in Ambush, 187. Unseen Indians would come skulking, spying, ‘snaking’ upon their refuge.
fig. 1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., I. viii. 105. I b’lieve my heart, I could get along and snake through, even if justices were more particular than they is.
b. spec. (see quots.).
1875. Encycl. Brit., II. 378. An arrow is said to snake when it works itself under the grass.
1876. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict., 391/1. Projectiles subject to this influence [i.e., spiral motion of rotation round their original direction] are technically said to snake.
3. To wind, twist, curve, etc., in a snake-like manner.
1875. Miss Bird, Sandwich Isl., xxi. 302. The track … snaked along the narrow tops of spine-like ridges.
1888. Clark Russell, Death Ship, II. 206. The hacked ends of the shrouds snaking out into the hollows and swellings over the side.
1902. A. E. W. Mason, Four Feathers (1903), 2. A coil of white smoke from a train snaked rapidly in and out amongst the trees.
4. trans. To make (one’s way) in a sinuous or creeping manner.
1879. Miss Bird, Rocky Mountains, 5. The monster train snaked its way upwards.
1894. D. C. Murray, Making of Novelist, 28. One by one we snaked our way … into the hole.
II. 5. U.S. To drag, pull or draw; spec. in Lumbering, to haul (logs) along the ground lengthwise by means of chains or ropes.
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 316. A farmer in clearing land, attaches a chain to a stump or log, whereby to draw it out; this he calls, snaking it out.
1878. Lumberman’s Gaz., 26 Jan. Where the haul is very short, and so close to the streams that the logs are ‘snaked’ in without being skidded.
1883. E. Ingersoll, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 206/1. The stumbling cattle snake the log endwise down the hill.
fig. 1833. [Seba Smith], Lett. of J. Downing (1834), 14. We snaked him out of that scrape as slick as a whistle.
1883. Times (Philad.), 26 May, 4/1. Some legal loophole can be found through which an evasion or extension can be successfully snaked.
b. transf. To drag or pull forcibly or quickly.
1898. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ xxvii. 359. One of the small London tugs … would have snaked those monsters along at the rate of three or four knots an hour. Ibid. (1899), Log Sea-waif, 341. Great Cæsar! how we did snake the hatches off.
6. U.S. slang. To beat, thrash.
a. 1859. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), 421. Any gal like me … ought to be able to snake any man of her heft.
7. U.S. To take out surreptitiously.
1862. Lowell, Biglow P., Ser. II. iii. 60. Ef You snake one link out here, one there, how much on ’t ud be lef’?
