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Limpet   Listen
noun
Limpet  n.  (Zool.)
1.
In a general sense, any hatshaped, or conical, gastropod shell.
2.
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.
3.
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.
4.
Any species of Siphonaria, a genus of limpet-shaped Pulmonifera, living between tides, on rocks.
5.
A keyhole limpet. See Fissurella.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Limpet" Quotes from Famous Books



... said. "When you are in the niches below me, it will hang close to your hands. If you are slipping, and feel you must clutch at something, catch hold of that. Only, if possible, shout first, and I will stick on like a limpet, and try to withstand the strain. But don't ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... indifference, by adopting the literal sense and Scriptural import of heresy, that is, wilful error, or belief originating in some perversion of the will; and of heretics, (for such there are, nay, even orthodox heretics), that is, men wilfully unconscious of their own wilfulness, in their limpet-like adhesion ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... not entirely comfortable, wedged sideways and close as herrings in a barrel. But all she did when she awoke was to push a soft little arm round either one or other of us, and cuddle as close as she possibly could; the least movement on our part, however, she deeply resented and feared. A limpet on a rock is nothing to this baby. Her very toes ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... published, Cuvier contributed his first paper—namely, on some new species of "Cloportes" (Oniscus, a genus of terrestrial crustacea or "pill-bugs"); this was followed by his second memoir on the anatomy of the limpet, his next article being descriptions of two species of flies from his collection of insects.[120] Seven years later Lamarck gave some account of the genera of cuttlefishes. His first general memoir was a prodromus of a new ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... discreditable, for I admit that you are in practice as ideal as in theory. I mean the process will be reversed. Some woman, whose Well-Beloved flits about as yours does now, will catch your eye, and you'll stick to her like a limpet, while she follows her Phantom and leaves you ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... before he knew what he was doing, he struck the sobbing, gasping child twice, and then endeavoured to remove him by the ungentle application of the untrammelled foot, from the leg to which, limpet-like, he clung. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... greetin owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stowp as toom's a whissle; An' damn'd excisemen in a bussle, Seizin a stell, Triumphant crushin't like a mussel, Or limpet shell! ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... too far already. You gave him too much encouragement in Switzerland, and at Brighton. He has attached himself to us, like a limpet to a rock. You will not easily get rid of him; unless you let him see that ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... on the Firth of Forth—when opened in 1831, with its paved floor strewed with charred wood, animal bones, limpet-shells, and apparently with a rock-altar at its mouth, having its top marked with fire, ashes adhering to its side, and two infants' skeletons lying at its base—was it a human habitation, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

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

... what I have done for my country in coming away from it, but I feel it is something; something great; something virtuous and heroic. Lofty emotions rise within me, when I see the sun set on the blue Mediterranean. I am the limpet on the rock. My father's name is Turner, and my boots are green. . . . Apropos of blue. In a certain picture called the Serenade for which Browning wrote that verse[81] in Lincoln's-inn-fields, you, O Mac, painted a sky. If you ever have occasion ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... course he clung like a limpet; and reverted to some subject they had been discussing, tacitly ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... single shell, and on this account they are called Univalves, in contradistinction to the Acephala or Bivalves. These shells, though always single, differ from each other by an endless variety of form and color,—from the flat simple shell of the Limpet to the elaborate spiral and brilliant hues of the Cones and Cowries. Different as is their external covering, however, if we examine the internal structure of a Gasteropod, we find the same general arrangement of parts that prevails in the Acephala, showing that both belong to the same ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... Devil's Half-acre.' It was undoubtedly a most diabolic address; but Shawn was a man of considerable strength of mind, as well as of muscle, and he resolved to become a juntleman, despite this damning reminiscence. Vulgarity, it is said, sticks to a man like a limpet to a rock. Shawn knew the best way to rub it off would be by mixing with good society. Dress, he always understood, was the best passport he could bring for admission within the pale of gentility; accordingly, he boldly attempted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... "Behold Lord LIMPET in his gilded Box, His well-gloved palms and scarlet silken socks Actively agitated; He who erewhile about the ball-room stood A solemn, weary, whispering thing of wood, And sneered, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... night like a limpet. This weather makes you dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for Leah, Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see. Hope she's over. Long day I've had. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... tree before the sun becomes violent. Aufidius used to mix honey with strong Falernian injudiciously; because it is right to commit nothing to the empty veins, but what is emollient: you will, with more propriety, wash your stomach with soft mead. If your belly should be hard bound, the limpet and coarse cockles will remove obstructions, and leaves of the small sorrel; but not without Coan white wine. The increasing moons swell the lubricating shell-fish. But every sea is not productive of the exquisite ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... emotion is like righteous anger, which may be lawfully indulged if the sun go not down upon it; and as he who shrinks from all fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so he who will never be moved is proud of a poor crustacean strength, like the limpet, winning darkness in exchange for dull stability. As for me, in the propitious hour when the heart longs for expansion, I give it honourable licence, and quicken its unfolding by spells of magical words. At such times I invoke ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... with full purpose of heart,' as the limpet does to the rock. Cling to Jesus Christ, the revelation of God's grace. And how do we cling to Him? What is the cement of souls? Love and trust; and whoever exercises these in reference to Jesus Christ is built into Him, and belongs to Him, and has a vital unity knitting ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Three women decently clothed in a garment which covered them from head to foot, and a man with only a breech-clout on, were dashing into the surf, picking up sea-moss, and a little univalve shell, a limpet, which they flung into small baskets which hung from their shoulders. They were, in fact, getting their suppers, and they were quite as much surprised at our appearance as we at theirs. They came out politely, and showed the children what was in their baskets; the man, understanding ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... direction natives are walking at a brisk pace, their naked feet making no sound on the springy turf of the streets, carrying on their heads huge burdens which are usually crowned by the hat of the bearer, a large limpet-shaped affair made of palm leaves. While some carry these enormous bundles, others bear logs or planks of wood, blocks of building stone, vessels containing palm-oil, baskets of vegetables, or tin tea-trays on which are folded shawls. As the great majority ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley



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



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