VIPER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does viper mean? 

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

1. venomous Old World snakes characterized by hollow venom-conducting fangs in the upper jaw

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• VIPER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Venomous Old World snakes characterized by hollow venom-conducting fangs in the upper jaw

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

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

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

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

adder; common viper; Vipera berus (small terrestrial viper common in northern Eurasia)

asp; asp viper; Vipera aspis (of southern Europe; similar to but smaller than the adder)

Bitis arietans; puff adder (large African viper that inflates its body when alarmed)

Bitis gabonica; gaboon viper (large heavy-bodied brilliantly marked and extremely venomous west African viper)

cerastes; Cerastes cornutus; horned asp; horned viper; sand viper (highly venomous viper of northern Africa and southwestern Asia having a horny spine above each eye)

pit viper (New World vipers with hollow fangs and a heat-sensitive pit on each side of the head)

Holonyms ("viper" is a member of...):

family Viperidae; Viperidae (Old World vipers)

 Context examples 

Jo glanced at the sheet and saw a pleasing illustration composed of a lunatic, a corpse, a villain, and a viper.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You can just see if you look at it sideways where the sharp spring like a viper’s tooth emerges as you open it.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The determination of the ratio of the dilute Russell's viper venom time in a subject sample to a control sample.

(Dilute Russell's Viper Venom Time to Control Ratio Measurement, NCI Thesaurus)

A measurement of the time it takes a plasma sample to clot after adding dilute Russell's viper venom.

(Dilute Russell's Viper Venom Time Measurement, NCI Thesaurus)

A relative measurement (ratio or percentage) of the dilute Russell's viper venom time in a subject sample to a control sample.

(Dilute Russell's Viper Venom Time to Control Ratio Measurement, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

The anticoagulant blocks in vitro assembly of the prothrombinase complex, resulting in prolongation of in vitro clotting assays such as the activated partial thromboplastin time, the russell viper venom time, and others.

(Lupus Anticoagulant Antibody, NCI Thesaurus)

A proteolytic enzyme and defibrinogenating agent derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper, with profibrinolytic and anticoagulant activities.

(Ancrod, NCI Thesaurus)

There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

As to any recreation with other children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers (though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and held that they contaminated one another.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

However, in the study, Senji Laxme from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and colleagues show that the antivenom used in India works only against the ‘big four’ — the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), spectacled cobra (Naja naja), saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus) and Russell’s viper (Daboia russelii) — but not against several other medically important species.

(‘India needs region-specific snakebite antivenoms’, SciDev.Net)