coral snake
noun
Simple meaning
Over 65 recognized species of New World coral snakes in three genera, native to tropical South America and Southern USA.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kawruhlsnaykSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɔɹəlsˈneɪk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Over 65 recognized species of New World coral snakes in three genera (Leptomicrurus, Micruroides, Micrurus), native to tropical South America and Southern USA, having bright bands of red, yellow and black.
Any of several venomous New World snakes brilliantly banded in red and black and either yellow or white; widely distributed in South America and Central America
Any of various venomous elapid snakes of Asia and Africa and Australia
Any of various venomous snakes of six genera in family Elapidae, many displaying distinctive color bands.
About 16 species of Old World coral snakes in three genera (Calliophis, Hemibungarus, Sinomicrurus), some banded.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Over 65 recognized species of New World coral snakes in three genera (Leptomicrurus, Micruroides, Micrurus), native to tropical South America and Southern USA, having bright bands of red, yellow and black.
Used this way, coral snake is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.