nautilus
(ˈnɔːtɪləs)
Pl. nautili (ˈnɔːtɪlaɪ); also -uses.
[a. L. nautilus, ad. Gr. ναυτίλος sailor, nautilus, f. ναύτης seaman, ναῦς ship. Cf. F. nautile (16th c.).]
1. The paper or pearly nautilus (see 2), or one of the many fossil species related to the latter.
1601 Holland Pliny ix. xxix. I. 250 Of the Calamarie, Cuttles, Polypes, and Boat-fishes called Nautili. 1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Isagoge a 7 b, Fishes, which are..involute, as the Nautilus. 1733 Pope Ess. Man iii. 178 Learn of the little Nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. 1755 Gentl. Mag. XXV. 128 The fourth Tribe called Nautiluses. Ibid., The particular species of the Nautilus, as shells, are the paperaceous, the eared, and the umbilical. 1824 W. N. Blans Excurs. 7 The nautili, if in danger of being run over, will, as the sailors term it, capsize. 1860 Maury Phys. Geog. Sea xviii. §740 The tiny little Nautilus, one of the oldest families in the sea. 1893 Sir R. Ball Story of Sun 294 Ammonites, which are allied to the nautilus of our present seas. |
attrib. 1692 Ray Disc. ii. iv. (1693) 148 There are no Nautili..comparable in bigness to that Nautilus stone of twenty eight pound found by Mr. Waller. Ibid. 150 Mr. Waller..writes, That he..making a search after the Cornua Ammonis, found one of the true Nautilus shape. 1746 Da Costa in Phil. Trans. XLIV. 398 A shell related to the Nautilus kind. 1831 Scott in Lockhart Life (1839) X. 130 A fairy cup made out of a Nautilus shell. 1851 Woodward Mollusca i. 48 The nautilus shell corresponds to that of the gasteropod. |
2. a. paper (or † paper-shelled) nautilus, the argonaut, a small dibranchiate cephalopod, the female of which is protected by a very thin, single-chambered, detached shell, and has webbed dorsal arms which it was formerly believed to use as sails.
1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., The polypus is by no means to be confounded with the paper-shelled nautilus. ? 1792 Shaw Naturalist's Misc. III. pl. 101 The Argonaut, or Paper Nautilus. 1854 A. Catlow Pop. Conchol. (ed. 2) 28 The curious and beautiful shells of the Argonauta Argo, or Paper Nautilus, are found in the seas of warm latitudes. 1870 H. A. Nicholson Man. Zool. li. (1875) 363 In the former of these [families] there is only the single genus Argonauta (the Paper Sailor, or the Paper Nautilus). |
b. pearly nautilus, a tetrabranchiate cephalopod (N. pompilius) found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, having a beautiful chambered shell with nacreous septa.
1776 [see pearly a. 2 b]. c 1800 Shaw Naturalist's Misc. XIII. pl. 515 The great pearly Nautilus. 1829 Bennett in Owen Pearly Nautilus (1832) 7 In the evening a Pearly Nautilus..was seen in Marekini Bay. 1870 H. A. Nicholson Man. Zool. li. (1875) 370 The structure of the shell in the Ammonitidæ is exactly that of the Pearly Nautilus. |
3. A form of diving-bell. (Knight Dict. Mech.)