Word.ws English Dictionary

murex

US/ˈmjʊɚ.ɛks/

murex noun: any member of the genus Murex of marine gastropods.

murex: any member of the genus Murex of marine gastropods
Image: Philippe Alès, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

murex (plural murexes or murices)

  1. Any member of the genus Murex of marine gastropods.
    • The bank of crushed murex shell that Professor Bosanquet found here, and again at Palaikastro, in company with a whole mass of Kamáres pottery, shows that the men of Sidon and Tyre were not the first to practise the dying of purple.1907, Ronald M. Burrows, The Discoveries In Crete, page 25
    • The murexes (family Muricidae) are one of the most beautiful and sought-after families by shell collectors.1991, John Montroll, Robert J. Lang, Origami Sea Life, page 56

Forms of murex

pluralmurexes
pluralmurices

Origin of murex

Borrowed from Latin murex.

Words formed from murex

Questions about murex

What does murex mean?
Murex means any member of the genus Murex of marine gastropods.
What part of speech is murex?
Murex is a noun.
How do you pronounce murex?
Murex is pronounced /ˈmjʊɚ.ɛks/ (US).
What is the plural of murex?
The plural of murex is murexes.

Words near murex in the dictionary

  1. murengers
  2. mures
  3. Muresan
  4. Muresans
  5. Muret
  6. murex
  7. murexan
  8. murexane
  9. murexes
  10. murexide
  11. murexides

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: murex (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “murex.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/murex. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.