Definition of "limpet" []

• Any of numerous marine gastropod mollusks, as of the families Acmaeidae and Patellidae, characteristically having a conical shell and adhering to rocks of tidal areas. (noun)
• One that clings persistently. (noun)
• A type of explosive designed to cling to the hull of a ship and detonate on contact or signal. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Neal laughed, but he felt that to use Una's hair as a wrap for the red pulp of a crab's back or the soft, black belly of a limpet was a kind of profanation."
• "For instance, a small snail called a limpet that fed on organisms that grew on the grass went extinct."
• ""Imagine the limpet is the antelope of the undersea Serengeti, grazing majestically on algae," he intones, bouncing the shell along."