Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The typical genus of the family Pholadidæ and the subfamily Pholadinæ.
  • noun [lowercase] A species of the genus Pholas; a pholad; a piddock. See cut under piddock.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous species of marine bivalve mollusks of the genus Pholas, or family Pholadidæ. They bore holes for themselves in clay, peat, and soft rocks.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several borrowing marine bivalve molluscs of the genus Pholas

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun type genus of the family Pholadidae: piddocks

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Here, for instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white; the mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallize comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell.

    The Ethics of the Dust John Ruskin 1859

  • Here, for instance, is a good garnet, living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white: the mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallise comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house; fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell.

    The Crown of Wild Olive also Munera Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; Aratra Pentelici; The Ethics of the Dust; Fiction, Fair and Foul; The Elements of Drawing John Ruskin 1859

  • Our railway tunnels are wonderful works of science, but the mole tunnelled with its foot, and the pholas with one end of its shell, before our navvies handled pick or spade upon the heights of the iron roads: worms were prior to gimlets, ant-lions were the first funnel makers, a beaver showed men how to make the milldams, and the pendulous nests of certain birds swung gently in the air before the keen wit of even the most loving mother laid her nursling in a rocking cradle.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

  • "The ` pholas dactylus, 'as scientific people call it, which, until Gosse, as I said, discovered its mode of action, was quite a puzzle to every one; although, now that the mystery is out, all wonder it was not cleared up before!

    Bob Strong's Holidays Adrift in the Channel John B. [Illustrator] Greene

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