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Genus of predatory sea snails named by Aristotle
Answer for the clue "Genus of predatory sea snails named by Aristotle ", 5 letters:
murex
Alternative clues for the word murex
Word definitions for murex in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Venus \Ve"nus\, n. [L. Venus, -eris, the goddess of love, the planet Venus.] (Class. Myth.) The goddess of beauty and love, that is, beauty or love deified. (Anat.) One of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. Any of the genus ''Murex'' of marine gastropods.
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails . These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae , commonly called "murexes" or "rock snails". The common name murex is still used for a large number of species ...
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
kind of shellfish which yields a purple dye, 1580s, from Latin murex (plural murices ) "purple fish, purple dye," probably cognate with Greek myax "sea mussel," of unknown origin, perhaps related to mys "mouse" (see muscle (n.) and mussel ).
Usage examples of murex.
This reference is said to doubtless refer to the islands of the Aegian Sea, from whence many claim , the Tyrians obtained the shell-fish,--the murex and papura, which produced the dark-blue and bright-scarlet coloring materials, the employment of which contributed so much to the fame of ancient Tyre.
There are huge hills of boiled-down murex remains all around the landward side of Tyre, taller than the buildings, which seem to kiss the sky.
Well, they gather the murex, break the shells, extract the fish and dump it in big vats.