Word.ws English Dictionary

nautilus

Syllables: nau·ti·lusUK/ˈnɔː.tɪ.ləs//ˈnɔ.tɪ.ləs/

nautilus noun: a marine mollusc, of the family Nautilidae native to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, which has tentacles and a spiral shell with a series of air-filled chambers, of which Nautilus is the type genus.

nautilus: a marine mollusc, of the family Nautilidae native to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, which has...
Image: Manuae, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

nautilus (plural nautiluses or nautili)

  1. A marine mollusc, of the family Nautilidae native to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, which has tentacles and a spiral shell with a series of air-filled chambers, of which Nautilus is the type genus.
    • He was still prepared to go on collecting all that life could offer, like a chambered nautilus patiently adding new cells to its slowly expanding spiral.1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 44
    • Nautilidan cephalopods, represented today by the six living species of nautilus are thought to have diverged from other nautiloids in the Devonian period.2016 August 17, Mark Carnall, “I, for one, welcome our new cephalopod overlords ... but what are they?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 31 Mar 2019
  2. A kind of diving bell that sinks or rises by means of compressed air.
  3. (inexact) A paper nautilus (actually an octopus).

nautilus meaning in Hindi, Bengali, Arabic and Indonesian

nautilus in Hindi

marine mollusc of the family Nautilidae
नौटिलस nauṭilas

nautilus in Bengali

marine mollusc of the family Nautilidae
নটিলাস noṭilaś

nautilus in Arabic

marine mollusc of the family Nautilidae
نُوتِيّ nūtiyy

nautilus in Indonesian

marine mollusc of the family Nautilidae
nautilus
More languagesFewer languages
nautilus in Thai
หอยงวงช้าง hŏi nguang cháang
nautilus in Vietnamese
ốc anh vũ

Synonyms of nautilus

Forms of nautilus

pluralnautiluses
pluralnautili

Origin of nautilus

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

Words formed from nautilus

Phrases with nautilus

Questions about nautilus

What does nautilus mean?
Nautilus means a marine mollusc, of the family Nautilidae native to the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, which has tentacles and a spiral shell with a series of air-filled chambers, of which Nautilus is the type genus.
What is nautilus in Hindi?
Nautilus in Hindi is नौटिलस (nauṭilas). See Nautilus meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is nautilus?
Nautilus is a noun.
How do you pronounce nautilus?
Nautilus is pronounced /ˈnɔː.tɪ.ləs/ (UK).
What is the plural of nautilus?
The plural of nautilus is nautiluses.

Words near nautilus in the dictionary

  1. nautilite
  2. nautilites
  3. nautilitic
  4. nautiloid
  5. nautiloids
  6. nautilus
  7. nautiluses
  8. Nauvoo
  9. nav
  10. nav.
  11. Nava

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nautilus (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nautilus.ogg.

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