CONSTRICTOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does constrictor mean? 

• CONSTRICTOR (noun)
  The noun CONSTRICTOR has 1 sense:

1. any of various large nonvenomous snakes that kill their prey by crushing it in its coils

  Familiarity information: CONSTRICTOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONSTRICTOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various large nonvenomous snakes that kill their prey by crushing it in its coils

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("constrictor" is a kind of...):

ophidian; serpent; snake (limbless scaly elongate reptile; some are venomous)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "constrictor"):

boa (any of several chiefly tropical constrictors with vestigial hind limbs)

Derivation:

constrict (squeeze or press together)

 Context examples 

The muscles of the pharynx, the inferior, middle and superior constrictors, salpingopharyngeus, and stylopharyngeus.

(Pharyngeal Muscle, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

The muscles of the pharynx are the inferior, middle and superior constrictors, salpingopharyngeus, and stylopharyngeus.

(Murine Pharyngeal Muscles, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Pathologic features include degeneration of the ciliary ganglion and postganglionic parasympathetic fibers that innervate the pupillary constrictor muscle.

(Holmes-Adie Syndrome, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

This did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like a boa-constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled beef.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)