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Boa constrictor   Listen
noun
Boa constrictor  n.  (Zool.) A large and powerful serpent of tropical America, sometimes twenty or thirty feet long. Note: It has a succession of spots, alternately black and yellow, extending along the back. It kills its prey by constriction. The name is also loosely applied to other large serpents which crush their prey, particularly to those of the genus Python, found in Asia and Africa.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Boa constrictor" Quotes from Famous Books



... ancient Brahmin transmigrated to this, and patiently awaiting his release. Nor is it incongruous with our reason or moral feeling to suppose that the cruel monsters of humanity may in a succeeding birth find the fit penalty for their degradation and crime, in the horrid life of a crocodile or a boa constrictor. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... of amorous pleasure. The gastronome is conscious of an expenditure of vital power, an expenditure so vast that the brain is atrophied (as it were), that a second brain, located in the diaphragm, may come into play, and the suspension of all the faculties is in itself a kind of intoxication. A boa constrictor gorged with an ox is so stupid with excess that the creature is easily killed. What man, on the wrong side of forty, is rash enough to work after dinner? And remark in the same connection, that all great men have been ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... boa constrictor, and then alarmed us all horribly instead of confessing the truth. Why, my dear boy, do you suppose I should have been so ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... having nothing else to say, proposed—the breakfast being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor—that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr Towlinson being left behind; and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up the rear. Mr Carker ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... The Boa Constrictor is not a fascinating snake—far from it. He relies on his muscles and not on his charms, for support. His appetite is vigorous, and the manner in which he disposes of his tid-bits, such as the larger carnivora, may be described as glutenous. Much has been ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... darted away, but it felt that it was driven to bay, and began to show fight in the most vicious fashion, snapping its flat beak, hissing, snorting, rattling its plumage, and undulating its long neck, as it danced about, till it looked like a boa constrictor which had partially developed into ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... How made and used. The climbing operation. Harry sees another forest to the south. Clear in the west. The wounded yak calls a halt. Resuming the journey. Harry in the grasp of a giant anaconda. John severs its body with a bolo. Boa constrictor. The python. The Cashew tree. Gum arabic. Seeing the West River. Discovering signs of habitations to the south. Course to be followed in meeting the natives. Hearing voices in the night. Crackling of twigs. A party of savages. The next morning. Examining ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms. What use on earth ataghan and scimitar and damasquined pistols, that would not carry straight three yards, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... we stood waiting for the lieutenant to give the word," added Billy, giving vent to his feelings by giving Tom a hug like that of a boa constrictor. ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... or no misery or abject want; that the people were interested in petty happenings of no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any mention was made of armies of men being out ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... jungle. Our only mode of escaping the thorns was to crawl on our hands and knees, trailing our rifles after us; and to do this without the certainty of their going off, we had to secure the locks in cases. Then we had the possibility of meeting unexpectedly with a cobra di capello, or boa constrictor, or a wild boar, or more dangerous still, a bear, besides running a risk of having our eyes scratched out, and other little inconveniences of that sort. Our chief object was to avoid making ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... district, restrict, strictly, stringent, strain, restrain, constrain; (2) stricture, constriction, boa constrictor, astringent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... was a colossal menagerie. In it there were more than twenty elephants, giraffes, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, zebras, dromedaries, camels, and the rarest kinds of antelopes. Then came the reptiles,—from the boa constrictor, who was ten yards long, to the smallest blind-worm, amongst them some of the most dangerous kinds. Crocodiles twenty feet long, monstrous toads, tortoises as big as donkeys. Then there were the wild beasts ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar

... possible. The snake stopped and from its mouth came a hiss that sounded like a jet of escaping steam and lasted fully half a minute. Still the eyes came no nearer but motion was discernible in the darkened corner from which the reptile had appeared. The boa constrictor, for such it was, was noiselessly drawing foot after foot of its thick body into the chamber in preparation for a quick lunge at its victim. In a flash the scale-covered coils would be thrown about the cub, crushing him ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company enough: but what was a boa ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley



Words linked to "Boa constrictor" :   Constrictor constrictor



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