turtle

Less common meanings

4. 4
   dovenounarchaic

   A small dove with a gentle purring call, now usually called a turtle dove.

   As the turtle, every day has been a black day with her since her husband died, and what should we unruly members make here?

   1613, John Marston, William Barksted

   Note

   This is a separate word, though it shaped the reptile name's spelling: Old English turtle, from Latin turtur, a name imitating the dove's call. In Book IV of Spenser's Faerie Queene (1596) a jewel is tied with a riband "About the turtles necke." In The Insatiate Countess (1613) a widow is said to mourn "as the turtle," the bird standing for faithful grief, though her grief is feigned. In older texts, check before picturing a shell.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   In teaching computer programming (especially with the Logo language), a small domed robot or an on-screen cursor that draws lines as it moves under the control of a program.

   In Logo, the turtle leaves a trail wherever the program sends it.

   Students rotate the turtle ninety degrees before drawing each side of the polygon.

   Note

   The screen cursor borrowed its name from the domed floor robot that came first. In Logo it has a position and a heading, and commands move it forward and turn it. Brian Harvey's Computer Science Logo Style notes that its appearance depends on the version. It may be drawn as a little animal with a head and four legs or, in Berkeley Logo, as a plain triangle. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • The screen turtle followed the physical robot and inherited its name. web.media.mit.edu
   • The physical turtle had a domed casing. fmslogo.sourceforge.io
   • A Logo turtle has a position and a heading. people.eecs.berkeley.edu
   • Commands move the turtle forward and turn it. people.eecs.berkeley.edu
   • Brian Harvey's Computer Science Logo Style describes version-dependent turtle shapes, including an animal with a head and four legs and Berkeley Logo's triangle. people.eecs.berkeley.edu
6. 6
   shield formationnounhistoricalcountable

   An Ancient Roman attack formation in which the soldiers' overlapping shields protected them on all sides, including from above.

   The cohort advanced in a turtle, shields locked against the defenders' missiles.

   Stones hurled from the walls failed to break the turtle below.

   Similartestudo

   Note

   Historians often call the formation by its Latin name, testudo, and turtle is its English counterpart. Both names rest on the same image: locked shields on every side and overhead make a shell, and the men move beneath it. The word belongs to accounts of ancient warfare. It takes the ordinary verbs of formations, so soldiers form a turtle, advance in one, or see it broken. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Testudo is the formation’s Latin name. en.wiktionary.org
   • Turtle is an English name for the same formation. en.wiktionary.org
   • The formation’s animal imagery comes from the protective shell made by the soldiers’ shields. romanmilitaryresearchsociety.com
   • Soldiers could move under the shield covering. en.wikipedia.org
7. 7
   huntverbintransitive

   To hunt turtles, especially by pursuing them in the water.

   Fishermen here turtled for generations before the practice was banned.

   The fishermen used to turtle in the shallow bay at dawn.

   Note

   The animal's name becomes the work of catching it, as with fish. Bernard Nietschmann's study of Miskito subsistence, Between Land and Water (1973), treats turtling as an activity in its own right, set beside hunting rather than inside it. People are counted as having turtled, hunted, or "hunted and turtled." Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Bernard Nietschmann wrote Between Land and Water, a study of Miskito subsistence. openlibrary.org
   • Nietschmann counts turtling separately from hunting and uses the exact phrase “hunted and turtled.” en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   verbrare

   To move along at a slow, plodding pace.

   We turtled along in Manitoba, back into the heart of the prairies.

   2012, Sophie B. Watson, Cadillac Couches
9. 9
   verb

   To build up a large defensive force and strike only occasionally, instead of pursuing an offensive strategy.
10. 10
    noun

    A breakdancing move in which the dancer floats on the hands, shifting weight from one hand to the other to rotate or "walk" in a circle.
11. 11
    noun

    In bubble sorting, a small element near the end of the list, which tends to take many passes to be swapped into its correct position.
12. 12
    noun

    A low stand used to support a lamp or other fixture close to the floor.
13. 13
    noun

    The curved plate that clamped the set type to the cylinder of an early rotary printing press.