land crab


noun
  1. any of several crabs, especially of the family Gecarcinidae, that live chiefly upon land, returning to the sea to breed.

Origin of land crab

1
First recorded in 1630–40

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use land crab in a sentence

  • Shuddering with horror, he shook it violently from him, and a large land-crab fell with a crash on the stones.

    A Desperate Voyage | Edward Frederick Knight
  • Even that poor groping old land-crab, with his skull full of pulp, had pride.

  • A crawfish or "land crab" will serve as a typical medium for describing the method of preparing specimens of this nature.

    Taxidermy | Leon Luther Pray
  • Hence, in the season, land-crab parties start from every village for the spots where they are to be found.

    Lost in the Jungle | Paul Du Chaillu
  • I told them it was a land-crab--which we might call the cocoa-nut crab, as we owed such a store to it.

British Dictionary definitions for land crab

land crab

noun
  1. any of various crabs, esp of the tropical family Gecarcinidae, that are adapted to a partly terrestrial life

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012