Meaning
A treacherous or deceitful person who poses as friendly, or whose hostility stays hidden; by extension, a danger that looks harmless until it strikes. Almost always said with suspicion or after a betrayal, as in 'he turned out to be a snake in the grass'. The plural, 'snakes in the grass', is used for several such people. Strongly negative and accusatory; implies concealed bad faith rather than open hostility. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The earliest known English use is the title of a 1696 London book by the nonjuring cleric Charles Leslie, 'The Snake in the Grass: or, Satan transform'd into an Angel of Light', an attack on the Quakers; a 1709 letter by Thomas Smith already uses it figuratively ('there is a Snake in the grasse, and the designe is mischievous'). The expression probably translates, or calques, the Latin 'latet anguis in herba' ('a snake hides in the grass') from Virgil's Eclogues (III.93), an image of danger lurking unnoticed; The Phrase Finder likewise states it has been known in English, meaning traitor, since the late 17th century and derives from Virgil's line. English had a home-grown equivalent earlier: 'a pad in the straw', where 'pad' means toad, recorded in Palsgrave's 1530 French textbook.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a serpent in the grass
- an adder in the grass
- snakes in the grass
- the snake in the grass
Usage Examples
- Everyone trusted the new treasurer until the audit revealed what a snake in the grass he had been.
- She warned her cousin that the smooth-talking partner was a snake in the grass, but the warning came too late.
- Beneath the committee's polite exchanges lurked more than one snake in the grass.