Definition of "black-snake" []

• A name of various serpents of a more or less black color. (noun)
• A kind of cowhide or horsewhip made without distinction of stock and lash, braided and tapering from the butt to the long slender end, and pliant and flexible throughout. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "He was the cunning black-snake which creeps silently in the grass, and none thinks him near till he strikes."
• "This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of an enormous monster, upon whom no one, however, has ever happened to set eyes."
• "Before her, squirming along over the sand-scrubbed floor, evidently disabled by a blow, was an enormous black-snake."