Óyster. n.s. [oester, Dutch; huitre, Fr.] A bivalve testaceous fish.

I will not lend thee a penny —
— Why then the world's mine oyster which
I with sword will open. Shakesp. Merr. W. of Wind.

Rich honesty dwells like your miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in you foul oyster. Shakesp.

Another mass held a kind of oyster shell, and other bivalves. Woodward on Fossils.

There may be as many ranks of beings in the invisible world superior to us, as we are superior to all the ranks of being in this visible world; though we descend below the oyster to the least animated atoms discovered by microscopes. Watt's Improv. of the Mind.

        Where oyster tubs in rows
Are rang'd beside the posts, there stay thy haste. Gay.