snail's pace

English

Alternative forms

• snail pace

Etymology

Due to the fact that snails tend to move very slowly.

Noun

snail's pace

1. (informal) A very slow pace.

   My grandmother drives her car at a snail's pace.

   • 1952 July, W. R. Watson, “Sankey Viaduct and Embankment”, in Railway Magazine, page 487:

     He describes the operation thus: "The heavy ram employed to impart the finishing strokes, hoisted up with double purchase and snail's pace to the summit of the Piling Engine, and then falling down like a thunderbolt on the head of the devoted timber, driving it perhaps a single half inch in to the stratum below, is well calculated to put to the test the virtue of patience, while it illustrates the old adage of—slow and sure."

Related terms

• slow as molasses
• slow as molasses in January
• slow as a snail
• walking pace

Translations

a very slow pace

• Afrikaans: slakkepas
• Catalan: pas de tortuga m (literally “pace of a tortoise”), pas de bou m (literally “pace of a cow”)
• Danish: sneglefart c
• Dutch: slakkengang (nl)
• Faroese: snigilsferð
• Finnish: etanan vauhti
• French: à pas de tortue (fr) (literally “pace of a tortoise”)
• Galician: a paso de tartaruga
• German: Schneckentempo (de) n
• Icelandic: hægagangur (is) m
• Irish: teacht an tseilide m
• Italian: passo di lumaca m
• Japanese: 牛歩 (ja) (gyūho, literally “pace of a cow”)
• Korean: 달팽이 걸음 (dalpaeng'i georeum)
• Macedonian: како полжав (kako polžav)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sneglefart m

  Nynorsk: sniglefart

• Polish: żółwim krokiem (pl) (adverb)
• Russian: черепаший темп m (čerepašij temp, literally “pace of a tortoise”)
• Spanish: a paso de tortuga (literally “pace of a tortoise”)
• Swedish: snigelfart (sv) c

Anagrams

• Pascalines, Plaisances, Plasencias, apsaclines, plaisances, snail paces, spalacines