| 释义 |
snail-like, a. and adv.
[f. snail n.1 + -like.]
A. adj.
1. Like or resembling a snail in appearance, habits, etc.
1607J. Davies (Heref.) Summa Totalis Wks. (Grosart) I. 7/1 And though it be..steepe,..Yet (Snaile-like) cling to it, and climbing creep, But fall not off it. 1611Cotgr., Limaceux,..Snaile-like. 1665R. Brathwait Comment. Two Tales (1901) 45 Must I Snayl-like, keep still under roof. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1824) III. 82 Those snail-like animals that receive the name of testaceous fishes. 1881Grant Allen Evolutionist at Large 57 The truest and most snail-like snails. 1901E. Step Shell Life xix. 347 The snail-like slugs are succeeded by the genus Helix.
2. Characterized by slowness of progress, etc.; slow, tardy.
1639Fuller Holy War iii. v. (1840) 122 The snail-like siege of Ptolemais, still slowly creeping on. 1831Lincoln Herald 29 July 1/6 The snail-like progress of the English Reform Bill.
B. adv. With the slow motion characteristic of a snail; tardily, sluggishly.
1825Scott Talism. xxi, The marabout..glided on gradually and imperceptibly, serpent-like, or rather snail-like. 1898J. Arch Story Life vii. 162 They would crawl snail-like, to the feet of the squire. |