snailとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From the Middle English snaile, snayle, from the 古期英語 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.

発音

• enPR: snāl
• IPA^(key): /sneɪl/, [sn̥eɪ̯ɫ]
• 韻: -eɪl

名詞

snail (複数形 snails)

1. Any of very many animals (either hermaphroditic または nonhermaphroditic), of the class Gastropoda, having a coiled shell.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess‎^[1]:

     ‘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. […]’

2. (informal, by extension) A slow person; a sluggard.
3. (engineering) 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.
4. (military, historical) A tortoise or testudo; a movable roof or shed to protect besiegers.
5. The pod of the snail clover.
6. (rail transport) A locomotive with a prime mover but no traction motors, used to provide extra electrical power to another locomotive.

同意語

• dodman, hodmandod (East Anglia, dialectal)

派生語

• snail trefoil (Medicago scutellata)
• snail mail
• snail's pace

参考

• heliciculture
• slug

動詞

snail (三人称単数 現在形 snails, 現在分詞 snailing, 過去形および過去分詞形 snailed)

1. To move or travel very slowly.

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

アナグラム

• Lains, Lians, Nilas, Sinla, anils, lains, nails, nilas, salin, slain