snakehead Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun showy perennial of marshlands of eastern and central North America having waxy lanceolate leaves and flower with lower part creamy white and upper parts pale pink to deep purple
    Chelone glabra; shellflower; turtlehead; snake-head; shell-flower.

WordNet


Snake"head` noun
Definitions
  1. A loose, bent-up end of one of the strap rails, or flat rails, formerly used on American railroads. It was sometimes so bent by the passage of a train as to slip over a wheel and pierce the bottom of a car.
  2. (Bot.) (a) The turtlehead. (b) The Guinea-hen flower. See Snake's-head, and under Guinea.

Webster 1913