name, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A North American rattlesnake, Crotalus cerastes, that inhabits lowland deserts.
2. 2
   small pale-colored desert rattlesnake of southwestern United States; body moves in an s-shaped curve wordnet
3. 3
   A person who is untrustworthy and dangerous. slang
4. 4
   air-to-air missile with infrared homing device wordnet
5. 5
   A heavy swinging blow from the side which disables an adversary. dated, slang

Show 3 more definitions

6. 6
   A pitcher who throws sidearm. colloquial
7. 7
   A type of middle-distance deep-sea trawler widely used during the 1960s and 1970s.
8. 8
   A rollercoaster element where riders enter a half-loop followed by a half-corkscrew, and exit perpendicular to the direction of entry.

Verb

1. 1
   Synonym of sidewind.

Proper Noun

1. 1
   Formally the AIM-9 Sidewinder, first used by the US in 1956, one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful short-range air-to-air missiles, still in use by many countries in the 2020s.

Synonyms

All synonyms

atlasbackstrokecrotalus cerasteshaymakerhookhorned rattlesnake

Etymology

From side + winder (“one who winds or wends, traveller”), from the sideways, looping manner in which they move.

Related phrases

Colorado Desert sidewinder

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.