shell-like

• shelllike

shell +‎ -like

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shell-like (comparative more shell-like, superlative most shell-like)

1. Having a similar shape to a seashell.
2. (literary, dated) Of the external ear, resembling the graceful convolutions of a seashell.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     "Nay, speak not so hastily; consider well the point; take me feature by feature, forgetting not my form, and my hands and feet, and my hair, and the whiteness of my skin, and then tell me truly, hast thou ever known a woman who in aught, ay, in one little portion of her beauty, in the curve of an eyelash even, or the modelling of a shell-like ear, is justified to hold a light before my loveliness?"

• shell-like is several times more common than shelllike in print.[1] GPO manual recommends using a hyphen to avoid a triple consonant.[2]

shell-like (plural shell-likes)

1. (slang, Britain, Australia, especially in set phrases) The ear.

   Can I have a quick word in your shell-like, when you've got a moment?