melc

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

melc

/melk/

Where it comes from

Unknown. Possibly a substrate word, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mel- (“soft, weak, tender”). Compare Breton melc’hwed (“snails”), Welsh malwod (“snails”), Latin mollis (“soft”), Old Armenian մեղկ (mełk, “soft, weak”). Another theory starts with the variant form melciu, which may possibly be derived from Serbian (i)mèla (“mistletoe”), with diminutive suffix -če and the meaning becoming "slimy, viscous". Other less likely ideas proposed include a substrate root *miliku or *kadmiliku, linked to Albanian kërmill (“snail”), këthmili, or from a Vulgar Latin *milax, metathetic modification of Latin limax (“slug, snail”), or a relation to the root of Latin murex, or a borrowing from Bulgarian мелък (melăk). See also culbec.

noun melci · melc · melcul · melcii

masculine snail, slug
Similar: culbec, bourel

In English

snail any animal of the class Gastropoda having a shell
slug gastropod

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"melc." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/ro/melc. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

melc. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/ro/melc

Chicago

"melc." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/ro/melc.

BibTeX

@misc{melc_2026,
  title = {melc},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/ro/melc},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}