snail
(noun) freshwater or marine or terrestrial gastropod mollusk usually having an external enclosing spiral shell
escargot, snail
(noun) edible terrestrial snail usually served in the shell with a sauce of melted butter and garlic
snail
(verb) gather snails; “We went snailing in the summer”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
snail (plural snails)
Any of very many animals (either hermaphroditic or nonhermaphroditic), of the class Gastropoda, having a coiled shell.
(informal, by extension) A slow person; a sluggard.
(engineering) 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.
(military, historical) A tortoise or testudo; a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers.
• (in translation)
The pod of the snail clover.
• dodman, hodmandod (East Anglia)
snail (third-person singular simple present snails, present participle snailing, simple past and past participle snailed)
To move or travel very slowly.
• Lains, Lians, anils, lains, nails, nilas, salin, slain
Source: Wiktionary
Snail, n. Etym: [OE. snaile, AS. sn, snegel, sn; akin to G. schnecke, OHG. snecko, Dan. snegl, Icel. snigill.]
1. (Zoöl.) (a) Any one of numerous species of terrestrial air-breathing gastropods belonging to the genus Helix and many allied genera of the family Helicidæ. They are abundant in nearly all parts of the world except the arctic regions, and feed almost entirely on vegetation; a land sanil. (b) Any gastropod having a general resemblance to the true snails, including fresh-water and marine species. See Pond snail, under Pond, and Sea snail.
2. Hence, a drone; a slow-moving person or thing.
3. (Mech.)
Definition: 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.
4. 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.).
5. (Bot.)
Definition: The pod of the sanil clover. Ear snail, Edible snail, Pond snail, etc. See under Ear, Edible, etc.
– Snail borer (Zoöl.), 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 (Zoöl.), the shell of snail.
– Snail trefoil. (Bot.) See Snail clover, above.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
23 November 2024
(adjective) concerned primarily with theories or hypotheses rather than practical considerations; “theoretical science”
The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch “koffie,” borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish “kahve,” borrowed in turn from the Arabic “qahwah.” The Arabic word qahwah was traditionally held to refer to a type of wine.
