| Singulier | Pluriel |
|---|---|
| snakess \sneɪ.kɛs\ |
snakesses \sneɪ.kɛs.ɪz\ |
snakess \sneɪ.kɛs\ (pour un mâle, on dit : snake)
Then, one day, as Taki was walking through the forest of silver trees that lie to the north of Druhim Vanashta, the city of Demons, he saw a snakess sunning herself in the sunless air upon a bank of crystal poppies. This lady snake was like no other he had ever seen.— (Tanith Lee, Tales from the Flat Earth: The Lords of Darkness: Night’s Master, DAW Books, 1978)
As regards Orlando, we have already seen that the interpretation of the lioness as reflecting on Rosalind is not altogether unlikely. It is probably also crucial that both animals are female. Unlike Hercules, Orlando faces a lioness and a snakess. Emblematic significances for lionesses are scant. They appear in Bestiaria. Analyzing the emblematic tradition related to Shakespeare’s snakess and lioness, Waddington drew attention to Icon Peccati, an emblem of Peacham, derived from Ripa, in which we see a naked young man. The snake of concupiscence winds itself around his loins and another snake gnaws at his heart. The position of the female snake reflects the winding and penetrating satanic snake in that the neck is now involved.— (Henk Gras, All Semblative a Woman’s Part?: Studies in the Staging of and Audience Response to Boy Actors in Sexual Disguise in the Elizabethan Theatre 1580-1615, 1991)
I brought a lot of pre-college baggage— (Mark O. Decker, “On Thinking of College - K.S.U.”, in The Road Ahead, Lulu Publishing Services, 2019)
To that acreage of learning.
I was thrown into a pit of seething snakes, and snakesses.
I was jubilantly self-reliant, and self-defiant;
No man owned my castle,
No matter that I didn’t own one myself.