TERRAPIN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Terrapin

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noun

Terrapin n. (Written also terapin, terrapen, terrapene, turpen, and turapen) (Zool.) Any one of numerous species of tortoises living in fresh and brackish waters. Many of them are valued for food. Note: The yellow-bellied terrapin (Pseudemys scabra) of the Southern United States, the red-bellied terrapin (Pseudemys rugosa or Chrysemys rubriventris), native of the tributaries Chesapeake Bay (called also potter, slider, and redfender), and the diamond-back or salt-marsh terrapin (Malaclemmys palustris), are the most important American species. The diamond-back terrapin is native of nearly the whole of the Atlantic coast of the United States.

Alligator terrapin, the snapping turtle.

Mud terrapin, any one of numerous species of American tortoises of the genus Cinosternon.

Painted terrapin, the painted turtle. See under Painted.

Speckled terrapin, a small fresh-water American terrapin (Chelopus guttatus) having the carapace black with round yellow spots; called also spotted turtle.

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Etymology of 'Terrapin'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Terrapin" Quotes from Famous Books

... supper! Canvasback! Terrapin! Champagne! The general had seated me at his right. Somewhere toward the close those expressive gray eyes looked at me keenly, and across his wine ...

— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... rise up and write the secret history of that wonderful committee and of the ways and means it used to prey impartially upon government and client? Who shall record the "deeds without a name," hatched out of eggs from the midnight terrapin; the strange secrets drawn out by the post-prandial corkscrew? Who shall justly calculate the influence the lobby and its workings had in hastening that inevitable, the war ...

— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... is lost within me. A quail is but an inferior chicken—a poor relation outside the exclusive hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. If asked the courses, I ...

— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... Street to its base. The young lady had come back from her adventure no less silly than when she went; and across the table the partner of her flight, a fat young man with eye-glasses, sat stolidly eating terrapin and talking about polo ...

— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... were not conscious, at first, as we sat in the cabin, that she was in motion and proceeding down the harbor. There was no beating or churning of the sea, no struggling to get forward; her paddles played in the water as smoothly as those of a terrapin, without jar or noise. The Tennessee is one of the tightest and strongest boats that navigate our coast; the very flooring of her deck is composed of timbers instead of planks, and helps to keep her massive frame more compactly ...

— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

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