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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

terrapin.

Any of several small turtles of the families Emydidae and Geoemydidae found throughout the world.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈtɛɹəpɪn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈtɛɹəˌpɪn/General-American/ˈtæɹəˌpɪn/Southern-US/ˈtɛɚpɪn/Southern-US
  1. Any of several small turtles of the families Emydidae and Geoemydidae found throughout the world.

    countable
  2. Any turtle.

    countable · obsolete
  3. Any of several small turtles native to North America that live in brackish or fresh water, especially the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin).

    countable · obsolete
  4. The flesh of such a turtle used as food.

    obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From torup (“snapping turtle native to North America, especially the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina)”) or from its etymon Powhatan *tōrəp (“sea turtle”) + possibly English -ine (suffix forming derivative or diminutive nouns), perhaps influenced by Latin terra (“dry land; soil; planet Earth”). Cognate with Abenaki tolba (“turtle”), Penobscot dolba and Unami (pisëla)tulpe (“soft-shelled turtle”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.