the.com/snake pit
A pile of chaos wearing the label 'workplace' or 'family gathering'.
means A situation or environment filled with vicious, backstabbing people and treacherous conflict.
from Literally, a pit filled with snakes — a real (if exaggerated) image used historically as a nightmare punishment or test. The phrase slithered into figurative use in the 20th century, especially boosted by a 1946 novel and film called 'The Snake Pit,' set in a chaotic psychiatric ward, which cemented the term's sense of a den of danger and madness beyond the literal reptiles.
- origin
- old asylums literally used pits of live snakes as treatment
- modern use
- now means any den of backstabbing and rivalry
- movie boost
- 1948 film about asylum cruelty popularized the phrase
- irony
- real snake pits are calmer than most office meetings