a. Also 6–7 snakie, 7 Sc. snaiky, 8 snakey. [f. SNAKE sb. + -Y.]
1. Formed or composed of snakes.
Chiefly in allusions to the serpent hair of the Furies.
1567. Turberv., Epit., etc. 64 b. All ye that Ladies are of Lymbo Lake With hissing haire, and Snakie bush bedect.
1595. Spenser, Sonn., lxxxv. The Furies fell Theyr snaky heads doe combe.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., IV. ii. 1735. Megæra with her snakie twine.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., V. lxv. 63. The Furies flung their snakie whips away.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 559. Thicker than the snakie locks That curld Megæra.
1710. Addison, Tatler, No. 154, ¶ 3. The Gorgon with Snakey Hair.
1862. Cox, Tales Gods & Heroes, 203. Pegasos, the child of Gorgo with the snaky hair.
1868. Morris, Earthly Par. (1870), I. I. 290. He drew the head out by the snaky hairs.
b. The snaky sisters, the Furies.
1728. Ramsay, Fables, Miser & Minos, 31. The three-pow’d dog of hell Gowl’d terrible a triple yell; Which rouz’d the snaky Sisters three.
2. Entwined with snakes. Said of the caduceus.
1591. Spenser, M. Hubberd, 1292. In his hand He tooke Caduceus his snakie wand.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., I. i. What? vse the vertue of your snakie tip-staffe there vpon vs?
1700. Dryden, Ovid, Metamorphoses, I. 928. In his Hand He holds the Virtue of the Snaky Wand.
1735. Dict. Polygraph., II. s.v. Mercury, A caduceus, or snaky staff, viz. a slender wand, about which two snakes did annodate.
3. Of or pertaining to a snake; freq. in allusive use, venomous, guileful, deceitful, treacherous.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, V. (1605), 455. O snakie ambition, which can wind thy selfe in so many figures.
1596. Colse, Penelope (1880), 162. Knowne trueth ne snaky enuies spite, Nor wrath can touch.
1612. Chapman, Rev. Bussy d’Ambois, V. v. 208. Hide, hide thy snaky head! to cloisters fly.
1671. Milton, P. R., I. 120. So to the Coast of Jordan he directs His easie steps; girded with snaky wiles.
1729. Savage, Wanderer, III. 125. Can the dove’s bosom snakey venom draw?
c. 1840. De Quincey, Murder, Wks. 1862, IV. 65. The oiliness and snaky insinuation of his demeanour.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., vi. His thin Punic lips curved into a snaky smile.
1879. Browning, Ivan Ivanovitch, 215. Have at the snaky tongue! That’s the right way with wolves!
4. Resembling the form of a snake; long and winding or twisting; sinuous, tortuous.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 92. Those crisped snakie golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the winde.
1611. Chapman, Iliad, II. 769/33. The crooked armes Meander bow’d, with his so snakie flood.
1695. Blackmore, Pr. Arth., II. 153. Their watry Train in Snaky Windings slides.
1827. Carlyle, Misc. (1840), I. 15. No story proceeds without … voluminous tagrags rolling after it in many a snaky twine.
1869. Phillips, Vesuv., iv. 126. The black sand lay thick between the snaky ridges of lava.
1887. W. G. Palgrave, Ulysses, 4. Huge woolly camels … thrust out their shaggy snaky necks.
5. Snaky letter, a sibilant. nonce-use.
1599. Minsheu, Sp. Gram., 8. One of the Culebrínas létras, the snakie or hissing letters.
6. Of places: Infested with snakes.
1856. Lady Canning, in Hare, Two Noble Lives (1893), II. 121. A charming ride round jungly lanes, with … tangles—very snaky, I should fear.
1883. Ellen H. Rollins (‘E. H. Arr’), New Eng. Bygones, 185. The place was said to be snaky.
7. Relating to snakes. (Cf. snake-story.)
1882. Daily News, 18 Jan., 5/5. ‘Snaky’ stories are only fit for that presently-to-vanish corps, the Marines.
8. Comb., as snaky-footed, -haired, -headed, etc., snaky-sparkling adjs.; snaky-like adv.
1591. Spenser, Ruins of Rome, 178. Nor swelling streames of that God [Tiber] snakie-paced. Ibid. (1596), F. Q., VII. vi. 18. He on her shoulder laid His snaky-wreathed Mace.
1596. Fitz-Geffrey, Sir F. Drake (1881), 96. The snaky-hayred Furies loathsome cell.
1638. Junius, Paint. Ancients, 60. The snaky-headed Furies tearing … and thrusting a hand-full of hissing serpents.
1736. Ainsworth, Eng.-Lat. Dict., I. Snaky handed, or snouted [as an elephant], Anguimanus. Snaky footed [as the fabulous giants], Anguipedes.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. I. iv. May not Murder come; and, with her snaky-sparkling head, illuminate this murk!
1855. Smedley, Occult Sciences, 181. He persuaded that snaky-tailed monster to accompany him.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. II. iii. 134. Her smooth braids, snaky-like, intwine.
