Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A short, circular tower, usually made of stone and located near a shoreline as a defensive fortification.
from The Century Dictionary.
- See
tower .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- (Fort.) A building of masonry, generally circular, usually erected on the seacoast, with a gun on the summit mounted on a traversing platform, so as to be fired in any direction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
short sturdy roundmasonry fort , especially one constructed at variouscoastal points in theBritish Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a circular masonry fort for coastal defence
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[After Cape Martello, Corsica, where such a tower was taken by British forces in 1794.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Alteration of the name of Cape Mortella in Corsica, after Italian martello ("hammer").
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word Martello tower.
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.