cobra meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

cobra

nounalso spelled COBRA

UK /ˈkəʊbɹə/ · US /ˈkoʊbɹə/

Etymology Borrowed from Portuguese cobra, from Latin colubra (“a female snake”).

9 senses

Any of the genus Naja of venomous snakes that can spread their neck ribs into a broad hood when threatened; a true cobra.

In the pools, too, was a species of small alligator or enormous iguana, I do not know which, that fed, Billali told me, upon the waterfowl, also large quantities of a hideous black water-snake, of which the bite is very dangerous, though not, I gathered, so deadly as a cobra's or a puff adder's.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

› Certain other snakes of the family Elapidae.

A ring-necked spitting cobra or rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus).

A king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah).

A tree cobra (genus Pseudohaje).

A shield-nosed cobra/coral cobra (genus Aspidelaps).

A black desert cobra (genus Walterinnesia).

An American cobra (Micrurus fulvius).

A false water cobra, Hydrodynastes gigas.

A type of lanyard knot, thought to resemble a snake in its shape.

Derived terms: cobra chicken, cobra effect, cobralike, cobra lily, cobra maneuver, cobra pose, cobra roll, cobra saffron, cobratoxin, cobric, Pugachev's cobra
Hyponyms: Asian cobra, binocellate cobra, Cape cobra, cobra capella, cobra de capello, Egyptian cobra, Equatorial spitting cobra, Indian cobra, king cobra, monocled cobra, Philippine cobra, snake-eating cobra, snouted cobra, spectacled cobra, spitting cobra, yellow cobra

noun

Government, Politics UK, Broadly A cabinet committee meeting that would use a COBR room

Government, Politics UK, Broadly A cabinet committee that would meet using a COBR room