reptile

Any of various usually cold-blooded egg-laying vertebrates often grouped in the class Reptilia, having dry skin covered with scales or horny plates and breathing by means of lungs, and including the snakes, lizards, crocodilians, and turtles. In some classification systems, birds are considered to be reptiles because they are descended from reptilian dinosaurs.

A person regarded as contemptible or obsequious.

Creeping or crawling; repent; reptant; reptatory; of or pertaining to the Reptilia, in any sense.

Groveling; low; mean: as, a reptile race.

A creeping animal; an animal that goes on its belly, or moves with small, short legs.

Specifically An oviparous quadruped; a four-footed egg-laying animal: applied about the middle of the eighteenth century to the animals then technically called Amphibia, as frogs, toads, newts, lizards, crocodiles, and turtles; any amphibian.

By restriction, upon the recognition of the divisions Amphibia and Reptilia, a scaly or pholidote reptile, as distinguished from a naked reptile; any snake, lizard, crocodile, or turtle; a member of the Reptilia proper; a saurian.

A groveling, abject, or mean person: used in contempt.

Creeping; moving on the belly, or by means of small and short legs.

Hence: Groveling; low; vulgar