tortoise-shell love

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The outer shell, or one of the scutes or scales, of certain sea-turtles or marine chelonians, especially of Eretmochelys imbricata, the hawk's-bill turtle, or caret, a species which inhabits tropical seas.
  • noun A tortoise-shell cat. See II., 2.
  • noun With a qualifying word, one of certain nymphalid butterflies: so called from the tortoise-shell-like maculation. Aglais milberti is the nettle tortoise-shell, and Vanessa urticæ is the small tortoise-shell.
  • Made of tortoise-shell.
  • Mottled with black and yellow: as, a tortoise-shell cat or butterfly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having a color like that of a tortoise's shell, black with white and orange spots; -- used mostly to describe cats of that color.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Attributive form of tortoise shell, noun.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun brilliantly colored; larvae feed on nettles
  • noun the mottled horny substance of the shell of some turtles
  • noun a cat having black and cream-colored and yellowish markings

Etymologies

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