The Collaborative International Dictionary
Snail \Snail\ (sn[=a]l), n. [OE. snaile, AS. sn[ae]gel, snegel, sn[ae]gl; akin to G. schnecke, OHG. snecko, Dan. snegl, Icel. snigill.]
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(Zo["o]l.)
Any one of numerous species of terrestrial air-breathing gastropods belonging to the genus Helix and many allied genera of the family Helicid[ae]. They are abundant in nearly all parts of the world except the arctic regions, and feed almost entirely on vegetation; a land snail.
Any gastropod having a general resemblance to the true snails, including fresh-water and marine species. See Pond snail, under Pond, and Sea snail.
Hence, a drone; a slow-moving person or thing.
(Mech.) A spiral cam, or a flat piece of metal of spirally curved outline, used for giving motion to, or changing the position of, another part, as the hammer tail of a striking clock.
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A tortoise; in ancient warfare, a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers; a testudo. [Obs.]
They had also all manner of gynes [engines] . . . that needful is [in] taking or sieging of castle or of city, as snails, that was naught else but hollow pavises and targets, under the which men, when they fought, were heled [protected], . . . as the snail is in his house; therefore they cleped them snails.
--Vegetius (Trans.). -
(Bot.) The pod of the sanil clover.
Ear snail, Edible snail, Pond snail, etc. See under Ear, Edible, etc.
Snail borer (Zo["o]l.), a boring univalve mollusk; a drill.
Snail clover (Bot.), a cloverlike plant ( Medicago scuttellata, also, M. Helix); -- so named from its pods, which resemble the shells of snails; -- called also snail trefoil, snail medic, and beehive.
Snail flower (Bot.), a leguminous plant ( Phaseolus Caracalla) having the keel of the carolla spirally coiled like a snail shell.
Snail shell (Zo["o]l.), the shell of snail.
Snail trefoil. (Bot.) See Snail clover, above.
Usage examples of "snail shell".
The problem would be to get the fragile old man down from the snail shell.
This can cause a skewing of diet data because though the snail shell quickly dissolves in the gut, the trapdoor (operculum) that closes the shell over the snail survives for a very considerable period.
From a distance it looked like a pointed mountain peak twisted like a snail shell.
Brandy spreads pot gloss across her top lip and then her bottom lip, blots her lips on a tissue, and drops the big lumbago kiss into the snail shell toilet.
While Niamh cooked the succulent flesh of the houoma over a slow fire, filling the air with delicious odors, I busied myself with the remainder of the snail shell.
He calls himself a nautiloid, sort of a giant squid in a big colorful snail shell.
Before Andris could chide him about the wisdom of eating anything that lived in these swampy waters, Wolther turned a plump snail shell over and probed about inside with the tip of his knife.
A ton of drastically flattened pink snail, with a perfect snail shell perched jauntily on its back, cruised over the cotton candy leaving a slime trail that bubbled and expanded to become more pink froth.
He was alarmed that the whole was disposed as a spiral, a snail shell, a vortex.