Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a South American boa, Eunectes murinus, that often grows to a length of more than 25 feet (7.6 meters).
- any large boa.
- Cards. a variety of poker in which each player is dealt seven cards, discards two, and turns up one of the remaining five before each betting round.
noun
- a city in SW Montana.
noun
- a very large nonvenomous arboreal and semiaquatic snake, Eunectes murinus, of tropical South America, which kills its prey by constriction: family Boidae (boas)
1768, a name first used in English to name a Ceylonese python, it was applied erroneously to a large South American boa, called in Brazil sucuriuba. The word is of uncertain origin, and no snake name like it now is found in Sinhalese or Tamil. One suggestion is that it is a Latinization of Sinhalese henacandaya “whip snake,” literally “lightning-stem” [Barnhart]. Another suggestion is that it represents Tamil anaikkonda “having killed an elephant” [OED].