Venus shell

noun

1. a marine bivalve mollusc of the family Veneridae, typified by the intertidal Venus gallina, with somewhat rounded ribbed valves

Example Sentences

As this reproducing, this copying of old cartoons was sometimes done one or two hundred years after the original was drawn, we find an anachronism most disagreeable to one who has an orderly mind, who hates to see a telephone in a Venus’ shell, for instance.

From Project Gutenberg

This is, however, a transferred meaning, porcellana being the name of a particularly glossy shell called the "Venus shell."

From Project Gutenberg