Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Zoology A hard bony or chitinous outer covering, such as the fused dorsal plates of a turtle or the portion of the exoskeleton covering the head and thorax of a crustacean.
- noun A protective, shell-like covering likened to that of a turtle or crustacean.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The shell of a turtle or tortoise; specifically, the upper shell, the under shell being called the plastron.
- noun In Mammalia, the shell of an armadillo.
- noun In Cirripedia, the multivalvular shell, test, or case.
- noun In higher Crustacea, the shield covering the cephalothorax, sometimes separable into a cephalostegite and an omostegite. See cut under
Apus . - noun One of the many hard cases, tests, or shells which are likened to a carapace, as those of certain infusorians; a lorica.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) The thick shell or shield which covers the back of the tortoise, or turtle, the crab, and other crustaceous animals.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A hard protective covering of
bone orchitin . - noun in figurative use
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun hard outer covering or case of certain organisms such as arthropods and turtles
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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That's when that one claw grows really big and the main carapace grows into a very bulbous shape.
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They get to about 50 cm in carapace length and have three low keels running the length of the carapace.
Archive 2006-02-01 Darren Naish 2006
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Soft-shell turtles actually do have a shell, called a carapace, that is not as hard as those on other turtles.
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Soft-shell turtles actually do have a shell, called a carapace, that is not as hard as those on other turtles.
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Soft-shell turtles actually do have a shell, called a carapace, that is not as hard as those on other turtles.
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Soft-shell turtles actually do have a shell, called a carapace, that is not as hard as those on other turtles.
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Soft-shell turtles actually do have a shell, called a carapace, that is not as hard as those on other turtles.
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If the carapace is shorter than the gauge, the lobster must immediately be released back to the water.
The Orange County Register - News Headlines : News By FRED SWEGLES 2010
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The arachnid’s carapace is too tough, however, and his weapon glances off uselessly.
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He was a blue lobster, and his carapace was the color of a beautiful deep midnight frost.
Agent Q, or The Smell Of Danger! M. T. Anderson 2010
qroqqa commented on the word carapace
Pronounced kærəˈpɑːtʃi by someone on Radio 3 the other night, to my utter astonishment.
October 7, 2009
madmouth commented on the word carapace
Care Apache, the king of the hippies
October 7, 2009