testudo

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin testūdō (“tortoise, turtle, lyre, type of military shelter”).

noun

  1. (Ancient Rome, military, historical) A shelter formed by a body of troops holding their shields or targets close together over their heads.
  2. A shelter of similar shape for miners, etc.
  3. (anatomy) The fornix.
  4. (music) A kind of lyre; so called in allusion to the lyre of Mercury, fabled to have been made of the shell of a tortoise.
  5. (pathology) An encysted tumour.

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