Emily Dickinson Lexicon

NAU'TI-LUS, n. [L.; Gr. ναυτιλος, from ναυς, a ship.]

1. The name of a small genus of cephalopodous molluscs. The animal has the sack, eyes, parrot-beak, and funnel of the other cephalopodes, but its mouth, instead of the large arms and feet, is surrounded by several circles of numerous small tentacles without cups. The shell is a spiral, symmetrical and chambered shell, i. e. divided into several cavities by partitions. Its lamins cross suddenly even in the last turns of the spine, which not only touch the preceding ones, but envelop them. The siphon occupies the center of each partition. Cuvier.
2. A loose popular name applied to the shells of several different genera of mollusca. The animal which is said to sail in its shell, upon the surface of the water, is the Argonauta Argo, very different from the nautilus. Perhaps nautilus may be said to be its poetical name. Learn of the little nautilus to sail. Pope.