carapace

Borrowed from French carapace (“tortoise shell”), from Spanish carapacho,^[1] of unknown origin, but likely from an extinct Ibero-Mediterranean substrate language.

Compare Catalan carabassa, Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos, “beetle”), Latin scarabaeus (the source of scarab); also Spanish galápago (“kind of turtle”). Doublet of calipash.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɛɹ.əˌpeɪs/, /ˈkæ.ɹəˌpeɪs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

carapace (plural carapaces)

2. A hard protective covering of bone or chitin, especially one which covers the dorsal portion of an animal.
3. in figurative use
   • 1928, Edward A. Ross, World Drift, New York, London: The Century Co., page 12:

     So, little by little, youth loosens the hard carapace of confining custom their elders have built over the human heart.

   • 2010 January 8, Simon Jenkins, “The proliferation of nuclear panic is politics at its most ghoulish”, in The Guardian, §: “Comment & Debate”, page 29, column 4:

     This is all a massive failure of science to pierce the carapace of public ignorance.

• carapaced
• carapaceous
• carapacial

• exoskeleton (often holonymous)

Borrowed from Spanish carapacho (“carapace, shell”),^[1] of uncertain origin.

• Audio:

  (file)

carapace f (plural carapaces)

1. shell

• → English: carapace
• → English: calipash
• → Italian: carapace
• → Portuguese: carapaça
• → Romanian: carapace

Borrowed from French carapace (“tortoise shell”).

• IPA^(key): /ka.raˈpa.t͡ʃe/
• Rhymes: -atʃe
• Hyphenation: ca‧ra‧pà‧ce

carapace m (plural carapaci)

1. carapace

Borrowed from French carapace.

carapace f (plural carapace)

1. shell (of a turtle)