Viper

How to spell viper

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce viper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does viper mean?

1. nounA venomous snake with long hinged fangs, found across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
2. nounA spiteful or treacherous person who harms others while pretending friendship.

Viper in a sentence

• The hiker froze when a viper slid across the warm rock.

• They slowly realised the charming new colleague was a viper at heart.

• The zoo keeper handled the viper behind thick safety glass.

• Behind the polite smile she proved to be a real viper.

Where does viper come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Viper comes from the Latin vipera, the standard word for a venomous snake. The Romans appear to have formed it as a contraction of vivipara, combining vivus 'living, alive' with parere 'to bring forth, to give birth', because these snakes were believed to produce live young rather than laying eggs in the way most reptiles do. The word travelled into English through Old French vipere during the late 1400s and early 1500s, gradually replacing the older native term 'adder'. The same vivus root that gives us 'vivid' and 'revive' is hiding inside viper, which is a useful reminder that the spelling is vi-, not vy-. From early on the word also carried a figurative sting, describing a treacherous or spiteful person, and that vivid sense of hidden danger still clings to it today.

How the word is built

• vip- (from Latin vipera: snake bearing live young)
• -er (English noun ending settled from the Latin form)