snail

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English [edit]

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Garden snail.

Etymology [edit]

From the Middle English snegge, from the Old English snægel from the Proto-Germanic *snigilaz.

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

snail (plural snails)

  1. Any of very many animals (either hermaphroditic or nonhermaphroditic), of the class Gastropoda, having a coiled shell.
  2. A slow person; a sluggard.
  3. (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.
  4. (military, historical) A tortoise or testudo; a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers.
    • Vegetius (in translation)
      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] []
  5. The pod of the snail clover.

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