snayl

• snail, snawile
• snayle, sneile, sneyle (Late Middle English); snyle, snyll (late Northern); snele (Catholicon Anglicum)

Inherited from Old English sneġel, from Proto-West Germanic *snagil, from Proto-Germanic *snagilaz, *snigilaz.

The form snele represents either Old English snēl or, more likely, a borrowing from Old Norse snigill, with a development /sniɣəl/ (perhaps seen in Early Middle English Snigleswath, Snygheleswath "Snilesworth") > /sneːɣəl/ (open-syllable lengthening) > /snei̯l/ > /sneːl/. Such a borrowing would also explain the form /sniːl/, where open-syllable lengthening would be blocked due to either a development of /iɣ/ into /iː/ or trisyllabic shortening in inflected forms.

• IPA^(key): /snæi̯l/, (Yorkshire) /sneːl/, /sniːl/
• Rhymes: -æi̯l

snayl (plural snayles)

1. A snail or slug; a gastropod.
2. Any shelled reptile.
3. (rare, Late Middle English) A kind of siege engine (with protective cabin and ram)
4. (rare) A tumor resembling a snail.

• English: snail
• Scots: snail

• “snail, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.