mol·lusk

also mol·lusc (mŏl′əsk)

Any of numerous chiefly marine invertebrates of the phylum Mollusca, typically having a soft unsegmented body, a mantle, and a protective calcareous shell, and including the snails, clams, and squids.

[French mollusque, from New Latin Mollusca, phylum name, from neuter pl. of Latin molluscus, thin-shelled, from mollis, soft; see mel- in Indo-European roots.]

mol·lus′cous (mə-lŭs′kəs) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

mol•lusk

or mol•lusc

(ˈmɒl əsk)

n.

any invertebrate of the phylum Mollusca, having a calcareous shell of one or more pieces that wholly or partly enclose the soft, unsegmented body: includes the chitons, snails, bivalves, and octopuses.

[1775–85; < French mollusque < New Latin Mollusca, neuter pl. of Latin molluscus, derivative of mollis soft]

mol•lus•kan, mol•lus•can (məˈlʌs kən) adj., n.

mol·lusk

or mol·lusc (mŏl′əsk)

Any of numerous soft-bodied invertebrate animals, usually living in water and frequently having a hard outer shell. Mollusk bodies have a muscular foot, a well-developed circulatory and nervous system, and often complex eyes. Mollusks include gastropods (snails and shellfish), slugs, octopuses, and squids.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

mollusk - invertebrate having a soft unsegmented body usually enclosed in a shell

mollusc, shellfish

carapace, cuticle, shell, shield - hard outer covering or case of certain organisms such as arthropods and turtles

invertebrate - any animal lacking a backbone or notochord; the term is not used as a scientific classification

Mollusca, phylum Mollusca - gastropods; bivalves; cephalopods; chitons

scaphopod - burrowing marine mollusk

gastropod, univalve - a class of mollusks typically having a one-piece coiled shell and flattened muscular foot with a head bearing stalked eyes

coat-of-mail shell, polyplacophore, sea cradle, chiton - primitive elongated bilaterally symmetrical marine mollusk having a mantle covered with eight calcareous plates

bivalve, lamellibranch, pelecypod - marine or freshwater mollusks having a soft body with platelike gills enclosed within two shells hinged together

cephalopod, cephalopod mollusk - marine mollusk characterized by well-developed head and eyes and sucker-bearing tentacles

shellfish - meat of edible aquatic invertebrate with a shell (especially a mollusk or crustacean)

Translations

Weichtier

mollusco

mol·lusc

, mollusk

n. molusco.

English-Spanish Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Try to conceive of this mollusk gravely applying for an official position, of any kind under the sun!

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Philip, however, met her advances toward a good understanding very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation to show himself out of his shell.

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The gently sloping beach along which I walked was thickly strewn with strangely shaped, colored shells; some empty, others still housing as varied a multitude of mollusks as ever might have drawn out their sluggish lives along the silent shores of the antediluvian seas of the outer crust.

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You will find in the most out- of-the way villages human mollusks, creatures apparently dead, who have passions for lepidoptera or for conchology, let us say,--beings who will give themselves infinite pains about moths, butterflies, or the concha Veneris.

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The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party.

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"Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified snag, or for the mollusks, its inhabitants.

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Moreover, in addition to her mischances, she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming that Rabourdin was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping of the mollusks.

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Gastropoda is the largest class concerning diversity within the phylum Mollusca, with over 100 thousand species described, representing about 80% of all known mollusk species (HASZPRUNAR et al., 2008).

Terrestrial gastropods as Fragaria x ananassa pests in southern Brazil: morphological identification/Gastropodes terrestres como pragas do cultivo de Fragaria x ananassa no sul do Brasil: identificacao morfologica

For example, the subletal for gastropods is the temperature of water above 27[degrees]C, depending on the type of mollusk (Afanasyev, 1993), due to the population of mollusks in the waters of Central Europe in the summer, it is sometimes significantly reduced.

Mollusks (Gastropoda) as Intermediate Hosts of Cattles' Trematodes (Trematoda) in Conditions of Dnipro Basin's Small Ponds (Northern Ukraine)

They also collected specimen of eight unidentified species of land snails and 17 unidentified species of micro mollusks. A micro mollusk is a very small invertebrate with a soft, unsegmented body with an external shell.

New species of land snail, micro mollusk found in Cebu

Despite these limitations, there were detectable patterns of prey selection by one or both species of mollusk predators.

PATTERNS OF GASTROPOD MOLLUSK PREDATION ON BIVALVE MOLLUSKS ALONG THE UPPER TEXAS GULF COAST