LIMPET • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Limpet

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noun

Limpet n. (Zool.)

In a general sense, any hatshaped, or conical, gastropod shell.

Any one of many species of marine shellfish of the order Docoglossa, mostly found adhering to rocks, between tides. Note: The common European limpets of the genus Patella (esp. Patella vulgata) are extensively used as food. The common New England species is Acmaea testudinalis. Numerous species of limpets occur on the Pacific coast of America, some of them of large size.

Hence: Somthing or someone that clings tenaciously to another object or person; specifically A military explosive device having magnets allowing it to cling to a metallic target object, such as the hull of a ship.

Any species of Siphonaria, a genus of limpet-shaped Pulmonifera, living between tides, on rocks.

A keyhole limpet. See Fissurella.

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Etymology of 'Limpet'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Limpet" Quotes from Famous Books

... a limpet, Eddy. Thank Gord! you ain't dead after all." It's slow and it's sure and it's steady (Which is 'ard, for 'e's big and I'm small). The rockets are shootin' and shinin', It's rainin' a perishin' flood, The bullets are buzzin' and whinin', And I'm up to me stern in the ...

— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... prominent position the teeth of the male must also be used for grasping and levering or pulling steadfast limpets from rocks. They needs must be hard and have strength as well as science at the back of them, for a limpet can resist a pulling force of nearly 2000 times its own weight. The sutures of the jaws of the fish enable it to accommodate its grip to the various sizes of limpets, and to take a fair and square hold, while the lower jaw seems to act as ...

— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

Words linked to "Limpet" : freshwater limpet, seasnail, Gasteropoda, Fissurella apertura, Patella vulgata, shellfish, common limpet, class Gasteropoda