turret
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English
Etymology
From Middle English touret, from Old French torete (French tourette), diminutive of tour (“tower”), from Latin turris. Doublet of tor, tourelle, and tower. See tower.
Pronunciation
- (UK, US) enPR: tŭr'ĭt, IPA(key): /ˈtʌɹ.ɪt/, /ˈtʊɹ.ɪt/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈtɝ.ɪt/ (accents with the "Hurry-furry" merger)
Audio (non native living in the US): (file)
- Rhymes: -ʌɹɪt
Noun
turret (plural turrets)
- (architecture) A little tower, frequently a merely ornamental structure at one of the corners of a building or castle.
- 1836, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Poetry: A Metrical Essay”, republished in The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, 1862, OCLC 5091562, pages 7–8:
- There breathes no being but has some pretence / To that fine instinct called poetic sense; […] / The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand / The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
- 1859, Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia, page 1:
- Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night,
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of light.
- 1836, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Poetry: A Metrical Essay”, republished in The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, 1862, OCLC 5091562, pages 7–8:
- (historical, military) A siege tower; a movable building, of a square form, consisting of ten or even twenty stories and sometimes one hundred and twenty cubits high, usually moved on wheels, and employed in approaching a fortified place, for carrying soldiers, engines, ladders, casting bridges, and other necessaries.
- (electronics) A tower-like solder post on a turret board (a circuit board with posts instead of holes).
- (military) An armoured, rotating gun installation on a fort, ship, aircraft, or armoured fighting vehicle.
- (rail transport) The elevated central portion of the roof of a passenger car, with sides that are pierced for light and ventilation.
Synonyms
- (military): cupola
Derived terms
Translations
a little tower
|
a movable building
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a solder post
a revolving tower constructed of thick iron plates
|
the elevated central portion of the roof of a passenger car
Anagrams
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English doublets
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- Rhymes:English/ʌɹɪt
- Rhymes:English/ʌɹɪt/2 syllables
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- en:Architecture
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