[TURTLE sb.2]
1. An arched structure over the deck of a steamer at the bow, and often also at the stern, to protect it from damage by a heavy sea.
1881. Standard, 30 Aug., 2/3. Erections for the purposes of shelter, such as turtle-backs, open at one end. Ibid. (1882), 14 Aug., 2/4. Covering these are a fine promenade deck amidships and a turtle-back forward.
1886. Times, 20 April, 10/2. He went beneath the turtle-back.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, i. The second-saloon deck at the stern … was finished in a turtle-back.
2. Archæol. A roughly chipped stone implement, having one or both faces slightly convex. Also attrib.
1890. W. H. Holmes, in Amer. Anthrop., Jan., 14. The familiar turtle-back or one-faced stone, the double turtle-back or two-faced stone.
1912. S. H. Warren, in Man, XII. 205. The present writer also has a Levallois, or ‘turtle-back’ core, which he found in the Lea Valley in 1896.
3. The back of a turtle.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 4 April, 3/2. The legends of the peopling of the islands are interesting…. Some make the passage on turtle-back; others go afloat on rafts of cocoa-nut shells.
4. attrib., as turtle-back core (see 2); turtle-back scale = turtle-insect (see TURTLE sb.2 5).
1909. in Cent. Dict. Suppl., s.v. Scale.
Hence Turtle-backed a., having a back like a turtle’s; furnished with a turtle-back (sense 1).
1839. Morning Herald (N.Y.), 28 Oct., 2/3. One of the cross turtle-backed beams settled down on the main beam.
1889. [see turtle-deck, TURTLE sb.2 5].
1891. Chambers’ Encycl., VII. 421/2. An armoured turtle-backed deck which extends throughout the length of the ship.
1908. Blackw. Mag., Jan., 51/1. I can see … a turtle-backed affair pushing out from the advanced trench.
