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A limpet is a small sea animal with a low, cone-shaped shell. It lives on rocks by the sea and holds on so tightly that cannot pull it off. If you try to lift one, it feels stuck, as if it has glued itself to the stone. People stretch the word from that picture: if someone “ like a limpet,” they will not let go — of a person, a job, or an idea. Though actually, the English name is a historical mix-up. An older form of the word first named the lamprey, a long fish that also sticks and sucks. The shell animal and the fish are not the same creature, but they share an old name-path. Scholars do not know the Latin source for sure; people have traditionally said it meant something like “lick-stone,” as if the animal licks the rock, but that is a traditional guess, not a sure fact.
笠螺（緊緊吸附在岸邊石頭上、殼像小帽子的那種；不是藤壺，也不是八目鰻）
組成Does not split in modern English. From Middle English lempet, from Old English lempedu (“lamprey”), borrowed from Medieval Latin lampreda, a changed form of Late Latin lampetra. The further Latin origin is unknown; it is traditionally thought to come from lambō (“to lick, lap”) + petra (“stone, rock”), but that is a traditional guess. Lamprey is a doublet: same older source, but that word came through Old French.
同家族的字
- lampreya doublet — same older name-path, but lamprey came through Old French; it is a long fish, not the cone-shell animal
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
limpetnoun/ˈlɪm.pɪt/
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Any of various gastropods with a conical shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot that they use to create strong suction to cling onto rocks or other hard surfaces.
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Someone clingy or dependent; someone disregarding or ignorant of another's personal space.
- He stuck to me like a limpet all day!
limpetverb/ˈlɪm.pɪt/
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To gather limpets.
- Mother visited the little cottage over the hill, and found Lisette's story to be quite correct; and many times the Frenchwoman blessed the day when Margie went limpeting and Lisette lent the old knife to the golden-haired little English lady.
- Razor-fishing, sand-eeling and limpeting used to be popular activities but have declined in importance.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。