as in slug
someone who moves slowly or more slowly than others
go and tell the snails in the back to hurry up
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to drag
to move slowly
the highway construction work created a bottleneck that had cars snailing for the next five miles
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of snail
R29 Team, Refinery29, 12 Sep. 2025
The bayous have become a popular breeding ground for intimidating apple snails from South America, which can reach 6 inches in width.
—Mark Price, Miami Herald, 10 Sep. 2025
Leslie Baumann, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2024
What can snail mucin do for your skin?
—Lacey Muinos, Health, 13 Feb. 2023
See All Example Sentences for snail
Noun
There is a fair bit of traffic today, and the bus is moving at the speed of a snail on the freeway.
—R29 Team, Refinery29, 12 Sep. 2025
The bayous have become a popular breeding ground for intimidating apple snails from South America, which can reach 6 inches in width.
—Mark Price, Miami Herald, 10 Sep. 2025
Verb
Could snail slime and salmon sperm be the next big things in skincare?
—Leslie Baumann, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2024
What can snail mucin do for your skin?
—Lacey Muinos, Health, 13 Feb. 2023
See All Example Sentences for snail
Recent Examples of Synonyms for snail
Noun
-
Snails can look like little elephants, slugs can look like fish, and worms can look like swimming chandeliers.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
25 Sep. 2025
-
The reflective foil discourages unwanted insects and pests like slugs from approaching and harming the plants, but actually helps to attract butterflies.—
Darcy Lenz,
Southern Living,
24 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
With marker John McGinn behind him, the midfielder attempted to drag the ball back and evade the challenge.—
Patrick Boyland,
New York Times,
1 Oct. 2025
-
If the shutdown drags on for more than a few days, a report on inflation scheduled for mid-October could also be delayed.—
Scott Horsley,
NPR,
1 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The company was supposed to have blocked crawlers from Google harvesting Claude chats, but hundreds of conversations were found with some simple searches.—
Thomas Brewster,
Forbes.com,
16 Sep. 2025
-
Leading Internet companies and publishers—including Reddit, Yahoo, Quora, Medium, The Daily Beast, Fastly, and more—think there may finally be a solution to end AI crawlers hammering websites to scrape content without permission or compensation.—
Ashley Belanger,
ArsTechnica,
10 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Arisu crawls onto a mound of rubble for momentary relief, and is met with an angry Banda.—
Kayti Burt,
Time,
26 Sep. 2025
-
At the time, officials concluded that a few mussels likely hitched a ride on a boat that had been in another infested area, most probably one of the Great Lakes in the Midwest, which are crawling with the critters.—
Shaun McKinnon,
AZCentral.com,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Retired or not, the world’s greatest quarterback does not have the luxury to indulge in sequential action—one thing at a time is for slowpokes and losers.—
Vinson Cunningham,
The New Yorker,
25 Jan. 2025
-
One group of 15 female rats, brighter in color than the rest, kept zooming past the others to make it into the houses first, making the rest of their furry colleagues look like slowpokes.—
Laura Bradley,
Vulture,
17 Jan. 2025
Verb
-
Signs of fall are finally beginning to creep in.—
Essence,
Essence,
30 Sep. 2025
-
Alabama and Ole Miss vaulted into the club with big wins, while Texas A&M crept into minus-odds territory with a home win against Auburn.—
Dan Santaromita,
New York Times,
30 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
That meant Hufanga spent a good chunk of the offseason not just learning a new system, but getting poked and prodded by his new coaches and running mate Jones.—
Parker Gabriel,
Denver Post,
30 Sep. 2025
-
The star compares calling out the sketch, which poked fun at her accent and teeth, to confronting a bully.—
Jessica Wang,
Entertainment Weekly,
30 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
And the equity market's rotational choreography remains active, with laggards such as energy and some other commodity stocks finding some relief.—
Michael Santoli,
CNBC,
24 Sep. 2025
-
In the months since US President Donald Trump took office, technology has, if anything, surged closer to the center of the political agenda, yet that has counterintuitively cemented the Kenya deal’s laggard status.—
Alexis Akwagyiram,
semafor.com,
22 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Snail.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/snail. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share