slither

An unseasonable weather pattern that included heavy rain and sweltering heat served as a signal for rattlesnakes to slither out of their underground winter burrows in search of food and mates.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2026

Still, he held on to a slither of hope.

From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026

Mystified, he wanders the dank halls of their rented palazzo and the fetid alleyways of the “pestilential city” where canal waters slither past like “a fat, grey-green worm.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025

Dr Rebecca Bell, a reader in tectonics at Imperial College London, said that to accommodate all of this motion, faults - cracks in the rock - form which allow tectonic plates to "slither" sideways.

From BBC ● Mar. 29, 2025

With Tiamat he would slither into jewel-studded caves, soar through ash-dark skies, and study ancient mysteries.

From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville

"You take multiple pictures, sometimes over 100 and it takes tiny little slithers of focus, and then you put all those into software, and that creates your final image."

From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025

After their snake handler’s docile specimen has an onset mishap, the real thing slithers into view.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2025

You stand stock-still until it quiets down and slithers on its way.

From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2023

When a cannibal spirit slithers out of the ocean, Gabe and his friends must find a way to stop it before it consumes their town’s ghosts along with any secrets they carry.

From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2022

It releases its hold on the ship, and slithers back into the water.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman

Throughout the World Cup, the team slithered away from trouble again and again … until the final game.

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026

In “Modern Times,” the Little Tramp slithered through a factory’s giant gears.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026

But she clipped the wall of the halfpipe halfway down the course and slithered to the base, losing a ski.

From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026

They spontaneously linked together to form chains that slithered through some obstacles and surrounded other objects.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025

For as Jeanne’s folks were out in the fields, working in the hot sun, a snake slithered into their house.

From "The Inquisitor's Tale" by Adam Gidwitz

Set against a slithering, seductive Chicago house beat, it’s really more of a command, one that the Queen of Pop immediately follows with another decree: “Come on, meet me on the dance floor.”

From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026

On the slithering “Naraka,” a mass of voices come together in a chant while a dense tangle of electronics coil around them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026

In Guillermo Cienfuegos’ enlivening, if at times unsteady, production at A Noise Within, the role is played by Ann Noble, who forgoes the outdated hunchback but adopts a seething, slithering, perversely seductive aura of menace.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026

Len Ramirez of Auburn, Calif., gave readers a slithering surprise in his 2015 My Ride column, which was photographed by Max Whittaker.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 28, 2025

But then whispers filled the corridor, slithering off the walls.

From "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas