mollusc

British

/ ˈmɒləsk /

noun

any invertebrate of the phylum Mollusca, having a soft unsegmented body and often a shell, secreted by a fold of skin (the mantle). The group includes the gastropods (snails, slugs, etc), bivalves (clams, mussels, etc), and cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopuses, etc)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of mollusc

C18: via New Latin from Latin molluscus, from mollis soft

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

mollusc

The present-day mollusc family includes snails, cephalopods and mussels.

From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2025

Chemically speaking, its formation begins with a mollusc extracting calcium and carbonate ions from water.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 12, 2024

Fears are now rife that the beloved mollusc, which even appears on the British territory's coat of arms, is being loved to death.

From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2020

Paulo Buckup and fellow zoologist Alexandre Pimenta examine mollusc specimens that were saved from the fire.Credit:

From Nature ● Jul. 15, 2019

“We are crochety and strange too, I with my mollusc hobby, and you with your fishing.”

From The Haute Noblesse A Novel by George Manville Fenn

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023