snakes and ladders noun2 •A children's luck-based board game of Indian origin, played on a numbered grid, the aim of which is to proceed to the end, and in which ladders aid progress and snakes impede it. •(figurative) Any situation in which people or events go forward and backward, seemingly at random.His Mireille has had a snakes-and-ladders career, starting up, going down, then finally rising once more. — 1983
