Main Entry: coral snake

Function: noun

Date: circa 1772

1 : any of several venomous chiefly tropical New World elapid snakes (genus Micrurus) brilliantly banded in red, black, and yellow or white that include two (M. fulvius and M. euryxanthus) ranging northward into the southern United States
2 : any of several harmless snakes resembling the coral snakes