snaking

Pluralsnakings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A twisting, serpentine layout or motion that winds back and forth.

   Like the curving path a river carves across a flat plain.

   Engineers admired the elegant snaking of the mountain road as it climbed toward the pass.

   The dancer's routine ended with a slow snaking of the arms above her head.

   Similarwinding, twisting, meandering

   Note

   As a countable noun it takes a plural. Lewis Ransome Freeman's Down the Columbia (1921) has a spine suffering "some pretty severe snakings" over corduroy bridges, with each jolt and twist counted as one. In the singular it usually comes with of, naming what does the winding: the snaking of a road, of a river, of a dancer's arms.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of snake.

   The trail kept snaking between boulders until it vanished into the trees.

   Thick cables came snaking across the floor from every desk in the office.

   Note

   One -ing spelling does three jobs here: the progressive verb (a trail snaking uphill), the gerund (snaking the drain cleared it), and the noun for a winding course. Most uses describe winding movement. The verb also covers clearing a pipe with a plumbing snake, stealing slyly in Australian slang, and informing on someone in Multicultural London English. The informing sense often takes out: snaking someone out.

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