krait

• karait, korait

Borrowed from Hindi करैत (karait), possibly from Kurukh.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɹaɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪt

krait (plural kraits)

1. Any of several brightly-coloured, venomous snakes, of the genus Bungarus, of southeast Asia.
   • 1871 December, Dr. J. Ewart, “How the bite of snakes―supposed to be poisonous―may be cured”, in The Australian Medical Gazette:

     On visiting the General Hospital, on the morning of the 22nd of August, I was informed that one of the punkah coolies had been bitten about 8.30 p.m., the night before, by a krait, whose venom is virulently poisonous.

   • 2007, A. Philip Parham, Feeling Free‎^[1], page 190:

     Now, if you run into one of these kraits, you better NOT run away else you're a goner. It'll catch you for sure and you will die in your tracks.

   • 2009, Kate Jackson, Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo‎^[2], page 295:

     Very much in my thoughts is Joe Slowinski, a herpetologist killed a few years earlier by a misidentified juvenile krait, a snake so small that he couldn't tell if the fang had punctured the skin.

   • 2011, Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions‎^[3], page 71:

     India has a healthy share of poisonous snakes, including kraits, cobras, and two species of vipers, yet Hindu traditions are overwhelmingly snake-friendly.

• Andaman krait (Bungarus andamanensis)
• banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus)
• blue krait (Bungarus candidus)
• Burmese krait (Bungarus magnimaculatus)
• common krait (Bungarus caeruleus)
• greater black krait (Bungarus niger)
• Indian krait (Bungarus caeruleus)
• lesser black krait (Bungarus lividus)
• many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus)
• northeastern hill krait (Bungarus bungaroides)
• red-headed krait (Bungarus flaviceps)
• Red River krait (Bungarus slowinskii)
• sea krait (Laticauda spp.)
• Sind krait (Bungarus sindanus)
• Sri Lankan krait (Bungarus ceylonicus)
• Suzhen's krait (Bungarus suzhenae)

•   Bungarus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

• IARTK, Takri, iktar, kirat, takir