|
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
|
SNAIL, n.
Any one of numerous
species of terrestrial air-breathing gastropods belonging to the genus
Helix and many allied genera of the family Helicidæ. They
are abundant in nearly all parts of the world except the arctic
regions, and feed almost entirely on vegetation; a land snail.
Hence, a drone; a slow-moving person or
thing.
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.
A tortoise; in ancient warfare, a movable
roof or shed to protect besiegers; a testudo.
[Obs.]
They had also all manner of gynes [engines] . . . that needful is [in] taking or sieging of castle or of city, as snails, that was naught else but hollow pavises and targets, under the which men, when they fought, were heled [protected], . . . as the snail is in his house; therefore they cleped them snails. Vegetius (Trans.). The pod of the sanil
clover.
Ear snail, Edible snail, Pond snail, etc. See under Ear, Edible, etc. -- Snail borer (Zoöl.), a boring univalve mollusk; a drill. -- Snail clover (Bot.), a cloverlike plant (Medicago scuttellata, also, M. Helix); -- so named from its pods, which resemble the shells of snails; -- called also snail trefoil, snail medic, and beehive. -- Snail flower (Bot.), a leguminous plant (Phaseolus Caracalla) having the keel of the carolla spirally coiled like a snail shell. -- Snail shell (Zoöl.), the shell of snail. -- Snail trefoil. (Bot.) See Snail clover, above. | ||||||||