sea snail

British

noun

Also called: snailfish. any small spiny-finned fish of the family Liparidae, esp Liparis liparis, of cold seas, having a soft scaleless tadpole-shaped body with the pelvic fins fused into a sucker

"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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Ben Cooper has been a fisherman in Whitstable on the north Kent coast since 1997, and relies heavily on the common whelk, a type of sea snail.

From BBC • Aug. 10, 2025

The molecule came from the Conus magus, a sea snail found in the deep sea.

From Salon • May 21, 2025

Adams, a biologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand who uses eDNA to investigate the blackfoot pāua sea snail there.

From New York Times • Feb. 24, 2020

Rodney Dillon noticed the day he squeezed into a wet suit several years ago and dove into Trumpeter Bay to catch his favorite food, a big sea snail called abalone.

From Washington Post • Dec. 26, 2019

It is sometimes called the sea snail, and is found on the marine grass in harbours, as well as in the open sea.

From Beautiful Shells of New Zealand An Illustrated Work for Amateur Collectors of New Zealand Marine Shells, with Directions for Collecting and Cleaning them by Moss, E. G. B.

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