a. and adv. [f. SNAIL sb.1 + -LIKE.]

1

  A.  adj. 1. Like or resembling a snail in appearance, habits, etc.

2

1607.  J. 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.

3

1611.  Cotgr., Limaceux,… Snaile-like.

4

1665.  Brathwait, Comment Two Tales, 87. Must I Snayl-like, keep still under roof.

5

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1824), III. 82. Those snail-like animals that receive the name of testaceous fishes.

6

1881.  Grant Allen, Evolutionist at Large, 57. The truest and most snail-like snails.

7

1901.  E. Step, Shell Life, xix. 347. The snail-like slugs are succeeded by the genus Helix.

8

  2.  Characterized by slowness of progress, etc.; slow, tardy.

9

1639.  Fuller, Holy War, III. v. (1840), 122. The snail-like siege of Ptolemais, still slowly creeping on.

10

1831.  Standard, 26 July, 3/4. The snail-like progress of the English Reform Bill.

11

  B.  adv. With the slow motion characteristic of a snail; tardily, sluggishly.

12

1825.  Scott, Talisman, xxi. The marabout … glided on gradually and imperceptibly, serpent-like, or rather snail-like.

13

1898.  J. Arch, Story of Life, vii. 172. They would crawl snail-like, to the feet of the squire.

14