snail

Pluralsnails

Formssnails, snailing, snailed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Any of a large group of soft-bodied animals of the class Gastropoda, whether hermaphroditic or not, having a coiled shell.

   A snail can withdraw its entire body into its coiled shell for protection.

   Garden snails feed mostly at night, grazing on leaves and leaving silvery trails.

   Note

   An old Germanic animal name, carried into English through Middle English snayl from Old English sneġel. Its German cognate Schnegel names the slug instead, so related languages draw the line between shelled and shell-less creatures in different places. In English the coiled shell is what makes a snail; the slime it leaves behind is vivid enough for Margery Allingham to use it for grimy children's faces in The China Governess (1963).

2. 2
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A slow-moving or habitually sluggish person; a sluggard.

   The new clerk was a snail, taking an hour over work others finished in minutes.

   Stop being such a snail and get your coat on before we miss the bus.

   Similarslowpoke, slowcoach, sluggard, dawdler, laggard

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To move or travel at a very slow pace.

   The convoy snailed through the mountain pass, barely covering ten miles in an hour.

   Commuters snail toward downtown whenever an accident blocks a lane.

   Similarcrawl, creep, inch

   Oppositerace, speed

   Note

   The verb usually takes a path or direction after it: cars snail along a motorway, a convoy snails through a pass, commuters snail toward downtown. The progressive snailing along suits traffic caught in a jam. Its forms are regular (snails, snailing, snailed), and it borrows the slowness of the animal for anything that crawls.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A spiral cam, or flat piece of metal with a spirally curved outline, used to move or reposition another part, as in a striking clock.

   The repairer replaced the snail so the striking train would count the hours correctly.

   Each step cut into the snail corresponds to a different number of hammer blows.

   Note

   A clockmaker's and engineer's word, named for its spiral outline. In a striking clock the snail is a stepped cam. The rack drops against its edge, and the depth of each step decides how many blows the hammer gives for the hour. More broadly, an engineer may call any spirally curved cam that shifts or drives another part a snail.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   In railroading, a locomotive lacking traction motors whose engine serves only to generate extra electricity for another locomotive.

   Operators coupled a snail behind the lead unit to supply extra power on the steep grade.

   The snail fed current to the locomotive ahead without turning any wheels of its own.

   Note

   Here the snail earns its name by never pulling. Its prime mover drives a generator, and the current goes to a coupled locomotive whose traction motors do the actual work. The unit adds power but no tractive effort of its own, so it always works in partnership with the locomotive it feeds.

6. 6
   nounhistoricalcountable

   A movable roof or shed used to shield besieging troops; a tortoise or testudo.

   The besiegers rolled a snail toward the rampart, sheltering beneath it from the stones hurled down on them.

   Arrows could do little against men advancing under the cover of a snail.

   Similartestudo

   Note

   A siege term now met only in historical writing. Like its synonyms tortoise and testudo, it borrows a shelled animal's name for a roof that soldiers could advance under. The shelter was brought up to the walls so attackers could undermine them or fill ditches while protected from missiles thrown from above. Keep it for accounts of past sieges, not modern armor.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The seedpod produced by the snail clover.

   Each snail on the clover holds several seeds within its tightly wound shape.

   Growers harvest the snails once they have dried on the stem.

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