snail

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   gather snails

   We went snailing in the summer

2. 2
   noun

   Any of very many animals (either hermaphroditic or nonhermaphroditic), of the class Gastropoda, having a coiled shell.

   ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’

3. 3
   verb

   To move or travel very slowly.

   The cars were snailing along the motorway during the rush hour.

4. 4
   noun

   freshwater or marine or terrestrial gastropod mollusk usually having an external enclosing spiral shell

5. 5
   noun

   edible terrestrial snail usually served in the shell with a sauce of melted butter and garlic

6. 6
   noun

   A slow person; a sluggard.

7. 7
   noun

   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.

8. 8
   noun

   A tortoise or testudo; a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers.

Etymology

From Middle English snayl, snail, from the Old English sneġel, from Proto-Germanic *snagilaz. Cognate with Low German Snagel, Snâel, Snâl (“snail”), German Schnegel (“slug”). Compare also Old Norse snigill, from Proto-Germanic *snigilaz.