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]
实用例句
1. Rattlesnakes belong to the viper family.
响尾蛇属于蛇科.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. He unwarily treads upon a viper asleep just before his feet.
他不小心踩到正睡在他脚前的蛇上.
来自辞典例句
3. You've had a pit viper and a ferret under your stage since Tuesday?
从星期二起毒蛇和雪貂就呆在台下的管道里了?
来自电影对白
4. As this Gaboon viper strikes, the dying rat's heart pumps venom around its body.
当这条加蓬湾毒蛇袭击时, 濒死的老鼠心脏会抽取毒液.
来自电影对白
5. That night, Viper found courage, a power far more potent than venom.
