serpent – English noun declension

English noun forms of serpent

Noun: serpent
Singularserpent
Pluralserpents

Sample Sentences

  • He falls into it, who has digg'd a Pit.
  • Who breaks a Hedge is with a Serpent bit. [1712, A. Hill, chapter 9, in The Book of Ecclesiastes Paraphrased. A Divine Poem., Newcastle upon Tyne: J. White, page 38:]
  • Coiled up behind the shrub, […] was a green imamba, the most dreaded of all South African serpents. [1879, Charles H. Eden, chapter III, in Ula, in Veldt and Laager: A Tale of the Zulus., copyright edition, Hamburg: Karl Grädener, page 45:]
  • Any serpent six feet long looks formidable; and over that length, one takes on the aspect of a chimera. [1946 October, Archibald Rutledge, “Along Nature's Trail”, in Boys' Life, volume 36, number 10, Boy Scouts of America, Inc., →ISSN, page 40:]
  • Then Beowulf too rallied. With his whetted dagger he slit a gash in the serpent's middle. [1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 46:]
  • He is a very serpent in my way. [c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:]
  • 'Dogs and serpents,' She began in a low voice that gradually gathered power as she went on, till the place rang with it. Eaters of human flesh, two things have ye done. First, ye have attacked these strangers, being white men, and would have slain their servant, and for that alone death is your reward.' [1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *serp-
3. Proto-Indo-European *sérpeti
4. Proto-Italic *serpō
5. Latin serpō
6. Latin serpēns
7. Old French serpentbor.
8. Middle English serpent
9. English serpent
10. From Middle English serpent, from Old French serpent (“snake, serpent”), from Latin serpēns (“snake”), present active participle of serpere (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-Italic *serpō, from Proto-Indo-European *serp-. In this sense, displaced native Old English nǣdre (“snake, serpent”), whence Modern English adder.
11. Compare Sanskrit सर्प (sarpa, “snake”), which is a descendant of the same Proto-Indo-European word as serpent. See: Middle English Nouns 'serpent', Latin Nouns 'serpēns'.

Verbs referencing "serpent"

Romanian Nouns serpent, Spanish Nouns serpiente.