[ad. L. testa a piece of burned clay, a brick, tile, a piece of baked earthenware or pottery, an earthen pot or vessel, a potsherd, a shell of a mollusk or tortoise, a shell or covering of anything. Cf. also TEST sb.1, and TESTA.]
† 1. A piece of earthenware, an earthenware vessel; a broken piece of pottery, a potsherd. Obs.
1545. Jove, Exp. Dan., iv. D iij. Then was ye test or potsherd, the brasse, gold & sylver redacte into duste. [Cf. Vulg. Dan. ii. 45 testam et ferrum et æs.]
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, I. xii. 76. It is good … to haue a dish of the plane tree or a test of earth.
2. a. Zool. The shell of certain invertebrates.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 371/1. This external covering or test, extremely delicate and fragile towards the umbones of the valves.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca, II. 214. The vascular processes by which, in many ascidians, the ‘tunic’ adheres to the ‘test.’
1872. Nicholson, Palæont., 60. Rhizopoda in which the body is protected by a shell or ‘test.’
1888. [see TESTACEA 2].
† b. Bot. The skin of a seed: = TESTA 1. rare.
1846. Smart, Suppl., Test (or Testa ..), the skin of a seed.
