# 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: /ˈtur.ris/, [ˈt̪ʊrːɪs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈtur.ris/, [ˈt̪urːis]

### Noun

turris f (genitive turris); third declension
* 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.)
* (Late Latin, chess) rook

#### Declension

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

#### 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

### See also

Chess pieces in Latin · latrunculī, mīlitēs scaccōrum (layout · text) :
| rēx | rēgīna | turris | sagittifer | eques | pedes |

### References

* ↑ Walde, Alois, Hofmann, Johann Baptist (1954) “turris”, in Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), 3rd edition, volume 2, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, pages 719-20

### 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, 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.