Malacology
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The study of molluscs. uncountable
"But the circumstances which the Baron Cuvier† so justly adduces as tending to retard the progress of Malacology in general, seem especially to have contributed to obscure the history of Nautilus Pompilius."
- 2 the branch of zoology that studies the structure and behavior of mollusks wordnet
Example
More examples"But the circumstances which the Baron Cuvier† so justly adduces as tending to retard the progress of Malacology in general, seem especially to have contributed to obscure the history of Nautilus Pompilius."
Etymology
From French malacologie, contraction of malacozoologie, from the (obsolete) taxonomic name Malacozoa + French -ologie (“-ology”), Malacozoa being in turn from Ancient Greek μαλακός (malakós, “soft”) + ζῷον (zōîon, “animal”). Equivalent to malaco- + -logy.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.