Other forms: vipers
A viper is a venomous snake, or a treacherous person. An adder is a viper, a nest of vipers, a viper in the household.
The adder is Britain's only one and its only venomous snake. The figurative sense is biblical in flavour, and a nest of vipers means a group full of treachery.
1nounviperA venomous snake, or a treacherous person.
“The hiker was bitten by a viper hiding in the long grass.”
viper is a snake.
Latin vipera is a contraction of a word meaning bearing live young, since vipers do not lay eggs.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷeyh₃-
Latin
vīpera
Old French
vipre
Middle French
vipere
English, today
viper
Built from
From Middle French vipere, from Old French vipre, from Latin vīpera, contracted from vīviparus (“viviparous”), from vīvus + parere. a doublet of weever and wyvern.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA