English Dictionary

TORTOISE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tortoise mean? 

TORTOISE (noun)
  The noun TORTOISE has 1 sense:

1. usually herbivorous land turtles having clawed elephant-like limbs; worldwide in arid area except Australia and Antarcticaplay

  Familiarity information: TORTOISE used as a noun is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


TORTOISE (noun)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Usually herbivorous land turtles having clawed elephant-like limbs; worldwide in arid area except Australia and Antarctica

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("tortoise" is a kind of...):

turtle (any of various aquatic and land reptiles having a bony shell and flipper-like limbs for swimming)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tortoise"):

European tortoise; Testudo graeca (small land tortoise of southern Europe)

giant tortoise (very large tortoises of the Galapagos and Seychelles islands)

gopher; gopher tortoise; gopher turtle; Gopherus polypemus (burrowing edible land tortoise of southeastern North America)

desert tortoise; Gopherus agassizii (burrowing tortoise of the arid western United States and northern Mexico; may be reclassified as a member of genus Xerobates)

Texas tortoise (close relative to the desert tortoise; may be reclassified as a member of genus Xerobates)

Holonyms ("tortoise" is a member of...):

family Testudinidae; Testudinidae (land tortoises)


 Context examples 


The tale of the tortoise and the hare is being retold.

(Race across the tundra: White spruce vs. snowshoe hare, National Science Foundation)

I heard a noise just over my head, like the clapping of wings, and then began to perceive the woful condition I was in; that some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak, with an intent to let it fall on a rock, like a tortoise in a shell, and then pick out my body, and devour it: for the sagacity and smell of this bird enables him to discover his quarry at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a two-inch board.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He waved his hand for silence, and went on:—Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"You will not rise to the occasion, you will default to the level of your training" (English proverb)

"Most of us do not look as handsome to others as we do to ourselves." (Native American proverb, Assiniboine)

"If you can't reward then you should thank." (Arabic proverb)

"Theory dominates practice." (Corsican proverb)



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