testudo
noun
Forms testudos testudoes testudines
- noun (Ancient Rome, military, historical) A shelter formed by a body of troops holding their shields or targets close together over their heads.
- noun A shelter of similar shape for miners, etc.
- noun (anatomy) The fornix.
- noun (music) A chelys (kind of lyre)
- noun (pathology) An encysted tumour.
Synonyms
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from Latin testūdō (“tortoise, turtle, lyre, type of military shelter”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A genus of tortoises which formerly included a large number of diverse forms, but is now restricted to certain terrestrial species, such as the European land tortoise (Testudo Græca) and the gopher of the Southern United States.
- noun A cover or screen which a body of troops formed with their shields or targets, by holding them over their heads when standing close to each other. This cover resembled the back of a tortoise, and served to shelter the men from darts, stones, and other missiles. A similar defense was sometimes formed of boards, and moved on wheels.
Etymology [L., from testa the shell of shellfish, or of testaceous animals.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “testudo”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details