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# mollusc

«mollusc» in Mova's school dictionary: **an animal with a soft body and no backbone, which often…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a mollusc, molluscs; US: mollusk)

### meaning for a pupil

A mollusc is an animal with a soft body and no backbone, which often has a hard shell; snails, slugs, clams, mussels, oysters, octopuses and squid are molluscs. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons on classification, molluscs are invertebrates, a huge group living on land, in fresh water and in the sea. Octopuses and squid are clever molluscs without outer shells. Phrases: «a sea mollusc», «molluscs and crustaceans».

### examples

- A snail is a mollusc with a coiled shell. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x1)
- Slugs are molluscs that have no shell. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x2)
- Octopuses are very clever molluscs. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x3)
- We found mollusc shells on the beach. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x4)
- Mussels and oysters are molluscs that live in the sea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x5)
- A mollusc has no backbone. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/#x6)

### note

UK, Australia and New Zealand: «mollusc»; USA: «mollusk»; Canada uses both. Plural «molluscs». Crabs and prawns are not molluscs; they are crustaceans.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «mollusc» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/mollusc/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.