English

Alternative forms

• pit-adder

Noun

pit adder ‎(plural pit adders)

1. Any of various venomous snakes of the family Crotalinae, found in Asia and the Americas, with a deep pit or groove on either side of the head which enables them to detect prey by infrared sensing; a pit viper.
   • 1893, Alfred Russel Wallace, Francis Henry Hill Guillemard, Australasia:

     The two chief poisonous families of the rest of the globe, the vipers (Viperidae) and the pit-adders (Crotalida;), are entirely absent, their place being supplied by the Elapidae, [...]

   • 1910, John Chalmers Da Costa, Modern surgery, general and operative:

     The venom of some snakes, Rogers says, contains a mixture of the above-mentioned venoms (among such snakes are the Australian colubrines and the American pit-adders).

   • 1947, Arthur Furr, Democracy's Negroes:

     There is the pit adder called Habu. This kind is the worst of the three. These snakes are three inches thick and six feet long, and resemble our diamond back rattlers at home.

   • 1973, The Magazine of fantasy and science fiction:

     Goblins which surrounded you, crowding closer and closer with their eye stalks vibrating, goblins which hissed like pit adders, were perhaps something he had not reckoned with.

   • 1974, Edgar Berman, The politician primeval: from the amoeba to the White House:

     They are neither lovable nor loving because they are innately poisonous or repulsive, like a pit adder or a skunk.

   • 2002, Raymond Hamel, Luftgangsters: a novel:

     "[...] I hope the events of the day haven't so unbalanced your sense of values that you're going to turn on your pilot like a maddened pit adder at the mere suggestion of something pleasurable."