nautilus

UK/ˈnɔː.tɪ.ləs/US/ˈnɔ.tɪ.ləs/

nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,092 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: nautiluses

A nautilus is a sea creature living in a beautiful spiral shell. A chambered nautilus, the nautilus shell, a paper nautilus.

The shell is divided into chambers the animal has outgrown and fills with gas to control its depth, and the spiral is a favourite illustration of proportion in nature. The nautilus is a relative of the octopus and squid and has changed little in millions of years.

Definitions of nautilus

1nounnautilusA sea creature living in a spiral shell.C1
“The nautilus drifted through the deep water in its striped spiral shell.”

nautilus is a sea creature.

Where it comes from

Greek nautilos meant sailor, from naus, a ship — the creature was thought to sail on the surface.

Ancient Greek
ναυτίλος — paper nautilus, sailor
Latin
nautilus
English, today
nautilus

From Latin nautilus, from Ancient Greek ναυτίλος (“paper nautilus, sailor”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Insects & Sea Life

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nautilus in the wild

Though it more specifically refers to the species Nautilus pompilius, the name chambered nautilus is also used for any of the Nautilidae.
Nautilus
Having survived relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, nautiluses represent the only living members of the subclass Nautiloidea, and are often considered "living fossils".
Nautilus
The chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius), also called the pearly nautilus, is the best-known species of nautilus.
Chambered nautilus
Indeed, the taxon of the chambered nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, is actually a grouping of tens of different species of nautilus under one name.
Chambered nautilus

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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