English speakers often use the word snake as a general epithet for a contemptible person. A snake in the grass is a particular kind of contemptible person. The story of the origin and meaning of the expression runs from ancient folklore to the present day.
The Modern English word snake goes back through Middle English snake to Old English snaca. The Old English word is akin to Old Norse snakr ("snake") and Old High German snahhan ("to crawl"). The ultimate source is an Indo-European root meaning "to creep." A snake, then, is "a creeping thing."
Because of their quiet creeping along the ground, snakes have long had a reputation for being a hidden, unsuspected danger. The Bible draws on that idea in the story of Eve. In the third chapter of Genesis, a serpent (a guise for Satan) befriends and then deceives Eve. The reason that Eve did not suspect the snake of treachery was that "the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field" (Gen. 3:1).
That subtlety, or unsuspected craftiness or danger, has long been couched in literary imagery involving snakes hidden in grass, with both literal and figurative interpretations.
According to an ancient Chinese proverb, for example, "He who was bitten by a snake avoids tall grass."
The Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.) drew on the same idea. In his Eclogues (3.93), he used the phrase Latet anguis in herba, literally meaning "A snake lurks in the grass" and figuratively meaning a hidden danger looms. That phrase became the model for later English versions of the expression.
At first there were variant forms, such as these: "O could this divell my soule so transforme That I must eate that snake in him did lurke" (1611, Oxford English Dictionary) and "Hold, hold, you drive too fast: there is a snake in the Bush" (1677, Oxford).
Charles Leslie, a theological writer, prepared an entire literary work on the theme of hidden dangers and titled the piece "The Snake in the Grass" (1696, Oxford). That is still the basic wording of the expression that most people use today.
The Modern English word snake goes back through Middle English snake to Old English snaca. The Old English word is akin to Old Norse snakr ("snake") and Old High German snahhan ("to crawl"). The ultimate source is an Indo-European root meaning "to creep." A snake, then, is "a creeping thing."
Because of their quiet creeping along the ground, snakes have long had a reputation for being a hidden, unsuspected danger. The Bible draws on that idea in the story of Eve. In the third chapter of Genesis, a serpent (a guise for Satan) befriends and then deceives Eve. The reason that Eve did not suspect the snake of treachery was that "the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field" (Gen. 3:1).
That subtlety, or unsuspected craftiness or danger, has long been couched in literary imagery involving snakes hidden in grass, with both literal and figurative interpretations.
According to an ancient Chinese proverb, for example, "He who was bitten by a snake avoids tall grass."
The Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.) drew on the same idea. In his Eclogues (3.93), he used the phrase Latet anguis in herba, literally meaning "A snake lurks in the grass" and figuratively meaning a hidden danger looms. That phrase became the model for later English versions of the expression.
At first there were variant forms, such as these: "O could this divell my soule so transforme That I must eate that snake in him did lurke" (1611, Oxford English Dictionary) and "Hold, hold, you drive too fast: there is a snake in the Bush" (1677, Oxford).
Charles Leslie, a theological writer, prepared an entire literary work on the theme of hidden dangers and titled the piece "The Snake in the Grass" (1696, Oxford). That is still the basic wording of the expression that most people use today.
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