snail king
nounEtymology Calque of German Schneckenkönig (“snail king”)
1
Rare A snail possessing a sinistral shell, from a species in which dextral shells are the norm.
- In German-speaking countries, there is a legend that a left-handed snail specimen is a “snail king” — Schneckenkönig.2016, Øyvind Hammer, The Perfect Shape: Spiral Stories, page 30:
- Virtually, almost all snail shells wind in the clockwise direction (mathematically negative) when viewed from above. This is not the case with the "snail king".2017, Georg Glaeser, Math Tools: 500+ Applications in Science and Arts, page 330: