Pl. limaces. [L. līmāx snail, slug.]
1. The typical genus of the Limacidæ or slugs; a member of this genus, a slug.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. lxx. (1495), 825. Limax … hathe that name for he bredith in lyme other of slyme.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Limax, a Snail without a Shell; a Dew Snail, a Slug.
1752. Sir J. Hill, Hist. Anim., 87. The body of the Limax is of a figure approaching to cylindric. Ibid., Limax ater, the black Limax.
1834. H. M’Murtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., III. 31. Limax Rufus, L. (the Red Limax). Ibid., 32. These Mollusca … closely resemble the common Limaces.
1851–6. Woodward, Mullusca, 103. Some of the limaces lower themselves to the ground by a thread.
2. (See quot.; the sense is recognized as Eng. in some modern Dicts.)
1839. Penny Cycl., XIII. 484/1. Linnæus uses the word Limax to designate the soft parts of most of the genera of his (Vermes) Testacea.
