Word.ws English Dictionary

pholas

pholas noun: any of several borrowing marine bivalve molluscs of the genus Pholas.

Noun

pholas (plural pholades)

  1. Any of several borrowing marine bivalve molluscs of the genus Pholas.
    • [M]any of the pillars of the temple of Serapis at Puteoli vvere penetrated by theſe animals. […] [T]he pholas muſt have pierced into them ſince they vvere erected; for no vvorkmen vvould have laboured a pillar into form, if it had been honey-combed by vvorms in the quarry.1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Multival[v]e Shell-fish”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume VII, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse...

Forms of pholas

pluralpholades

Origin of pholas

From the genus name.

Questions about pholas

What does pholas mean?
Pholas means any of several borrowing marine bivalve molluscs of the genus Pholas.
What part of speech is pholas?
Pholas is a noun.
What is the plural of pholas?
The plural of pholas is pholades.

Words near pholas in the dictionary

  1. pholadite
  2. pholadites
  3. pholadomyid
  4. pholadomyids
  5. pholads
  6. pholas
  7. pholcid
  8. pholcids
  9. pholcodine
  10. pholedrine
  11. Pholegandros

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pholas (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: “pholas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pholas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.