ˈsea-snail
1. A name for various marine gasteropods.
| c 1000 ælfric Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 122/24 Chelio, testudo, uel marina gugalia, sæsnæl, uel pinewinclan. c 1050 Suppl. ælfric's Gloss. Ibid. 181/8 Conche, uel cochlee, scille, uel sæsnæglas. 1538 Elyot Dict., Chelydros, a see snayle. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 77 Take the blood of a sea⁓snaile, and for want thereof a common snaile. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1824) III. 116 Of all sea snails, that which is most frequently seen swimming upon the surface..is the Nautilus. 1820 Scoresby Acc. Arctic Reg. I. 543 Clio helicina. Sea-snail. 1860 G. Bennett Gatherings Naturalist Austral. 41, I caught a Janthina fragilis, or Violet Sea Snail. 1865 Mrs. L. L. Clarke Sea-weeds i. 23 Bright yellow Nerits, the commonest sea-snail of our coast. |
| attrib. 1681 Grew Musæum i. §v. iv. 121 A Sea-Snail shell. 1850 Miss Pratt Comm. Things of Sea-side iii. 221 There is a shell lying about most of our beaches and sandy shores,..called the Sea Snail-shell. |
2. A fish of the family
Liparididæ,
esp. the
Liparis vulgaris, or unctuous sucker.
| a 1672 Willughby Hist. Pisc. (1686) Tab. H 6, Liparis nostras. Sea Snail Dunelmensibus. 1769 Pennant Brit. Zool. III. 105 The sea snail takes its name from the soft and unctuous texture of its body resembling that of the land snail. 1881 Cassell's Nat. Hist. V. 97 The Sea Snail..is often known as the Unctuous Lump-sucker. |