viper: [16] A viper is etymologically a creature that ‘gives birth to live young’. The word comes via Old French vipere from Latin vīpera ‘snake’. This was a contraction of an earlier *vīvipera, a compound noun formed from vīvus ‘alive’ (source of English vivacious, vivid, etc) and parere ‘give birth’ (source of English parent, parturition, etc) – in former times it was thought that snakes gave birth to live young.
Latin vīpera is also the ancestor of English wyvern ‘dragonlike creature’ [17] and possibly of weever [17], the name of a type of fish with poisonous spines; and the elements from which it was formed also of course underlie the English adjective viviparous. => parent, vivid, viviparous
viper (n.)
early 15c., from Middle French vipere, earlier in English as vipera (c. 1200), directly from Latin vipera "viper, snake, serpent," contraction of *vivipera, from vivus "alive, living" (see vital) + parere "bring forth, bear" (see pare). In common with many snake species in cooler climates, in most cases the viper's eggs are kept inside the mother until hatching.
Applied to persons of spiteful character since at least 1590s. The only venomous snake found in Great Britain, but not especially dangerous. The word replaced native adder. "The flesh of the viper was formerly regarded as possessing great nutritive or restorative properties, and was frequently used medicinally" [OED]; hence viper-wine, wine medicated with some kind of extract from vipers, used 17c. by "gray-bearded gallants" in a bid "to feele new lust, and youthfull flames agin." [Massinger]
雙語例句
1. Rattlesnakes belong to the viper family.
響尾蛇屬于蛇科.
來自《簡明英漢詞典》
2. He unwarily treads upon a viper asleep just before his feet.
他不小心踩到正睡在他腳前的蛇上.
來自辭典例句
3. You've had a pit viper and a ferret under your stage since Tuesday?
從星期二起毒蛇和雪貂就呆在臺下的管道里了?
來自電影對白
4. As this Gaboon viper strikes, the dying rat's heart pumps venom around its body.
當這條加蓬灣毒蛇襲擊時, 瀕死的老鼠心臟會抽取毒液.
來自電影對白
5. That night, Viper found courage, a power far more potent than venom.