ˈshell-snail
A snail having a shell.
| 1600 Surflet Country Farm i. xii. 58 A cataplasme..made of the muscilage of shell snailes. 1601 Holland Pliny xxx. xiii. II. 395 Certaine shell-snailes that creepe in troupes together for to devour the young spring and greene leaves of plants. 1691 Ray S. & E.C. Words 102 A Hodmandod, a Shell-snail. 1699 J. Barry Reviving Cordial. (1802) 23 Some speckled shell-snails. 1843 Zoologist I. 97 Small spiral-shaped shell-snails. 1890 Hardwicke's Sci. Gossip XXVI. 239/1 The big shell snails..which lurk, during the day, in crevices of the walls. |
b. fig. A retiring or shy person.
| 1585 T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. Ep. Ded., What (think we) may be obiected against those shelsnailes? |