turris

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek τύρρις (túrrhis) (Hesychius), τύρσις (túrsis), likely ultimately a Mediterranean substrate loan. Compare Τυρρηνός (Turrhēnós, “Etruscan”). Also compare the tribe Taurini.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈtur.ris/, [ˈt̪ʊrːɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈtur.ris/, [ˈt̪urːis]

Noun

turris f (genitive turris); third declension

1. tower, especially a military tower for siege, advanced to the walls on wheels, or one on a wall for defense; loosely used of a high building
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.86:

     Nōn coeptae adsurgunt turrēs, [...].

     Towers, partially built, rise up no [higher], [...].
     (Literally: [construction] having been begun.)

2. (Late Latin, chess) rook

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem, accusative singular in -im or occasionally -em, ablative singular in -ī or -e).

	singular	plural
nominative	turris	turrēs
genitive	turris	turrium
dative	turrī	turribus
accusative	turrim turrem	turrēs turrīs
ablative	turrī turre	turribus
vocative	turris	turrēs

Derived terms

• turrītus
• interturrium

Descendants

• Eastern Romance
  • Aromanian: turon
  • Romanian: turn
• Gallo-Italic
  • Emilian: tårr
  • Lombard: torr [tor, tur]
• Italo-Dalmatian
  • Italian: torre
  • Sicilian: turri
    • → Maltese: torri
• Old French: tor (see there for further descendants)
  • Middle French: tour
    • French: tour (see there for further descendants)
  • Walloon: tour
• Old Occitan: torre
  • Occitan: torre
• Rhaeto-Romance
  • Romansch: tor, tur, tuor
• Venetan: tor, tore
• West Iberian
  • Navarro-Aragonese:
    • Aragonese: torre
  • Old Leonese:
    • Asturian: torre
  • Old Galician-Portuguese: torre
    • Galician: torre
    • Portuguese: torre (see there for further descendants)
  • Old Spanish: torre
    • Spanish: torre (see there for further descendants)
• → Proto-Celtic:
  • Proto-Brythonic:
    • Cornish: tor
    • Old Welsh: *tor
      • Welsh: tŵr
  • Old Irish:
    • Irish: tor
  • → Old English: tor, torr
    • Middle English: tor
      • English: tor, tower
• → Albanian: turrë

Further reading

• “turris”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “turris”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• turris in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• turris in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to build a tower: turrim excitare, erigere, facere
    
  • to raise towers: turres instituere, exstruere
    
• “turris”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “turris”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
• “turris”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• New Latin Grammar, Allen and Greenough, 1902.