anaconda
n.a very large snake found in South America that kills animals by wrapping around them and squeezing. One of the biggest snakes in the world.
n.a large non-venomous constrictor snake native to tropical South America, belonging to the family Boidae. Kills prey by constriction rather than venom.
“The anaconda slid silently through the murky river water.”
“Wildlife photographers waited hours in the swamp to capture footage of a green anaconda hunting capybara.”
“Though popular culture depicts anacondas as man-eating monsters, actual attacks on humans are vanishingly rare and typically defensive in nature.”
From New Latin anacandaia (“python”), originally referring to a species of constrictor found in Sri Lanka, from Sinhalese හෙනකඳයා (henakaⁿdayā, “whip snake”), from හෙණ (heṇa, “lightning, thunderbolt”) + කඳ (kaⁿda, “stem, trunk, body”) or from Tamil ஆனைக்கொன்றான் (āṉaikkoṉṟāṉ, “having killed an elephant”), from ஆனை (āṉai, “elephant”) + கொன்றான் (koṉṟāṉ, “having killed”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.