From which language was the name of the snake Anaconda derived from?

Answer 1

From the Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) henakandaya

Answer 2

I normally HATE it when people copy/paste wikipedia as their answer, but I honestly didn't know and wanted to find out. Still not a definitive answer, but here you go:
There are two possible origins for the word 'anaconda': It is perhaps an alteration of the Sinhalese word 'henakanday', meaning 'whip snake', or more likely, the Tamil word 'anaikondran', which means 'elephant killer', as early Spanish settlers in South America referred to the anaconda as 'matatoro', or 'bull killer'. It is unclear how the name originated so far from the snake's native habitat; it is likely due to its vague similarity to the large Asian pythons.

Answer 3

Most dictionaries give information on the origin of
words. I was surprised at the other answer, which
attributes anaconda to a Sinhalese word, as the
snake does not occur anywhere near where the
Sinhalese language is spoken. However my
dictionary states that the word originally applied to
some kind of python, which does occur in Ceylon.