carapace
/ˈkæ.ɹəˌpeɪs/US/ˈkɛɹ.əˌpeɪs/
carapace noun: a hard protective covering of bone or chitin, especially one which covers the dorsal portion of an animal.
Noun
carapace (plural carapaces)
- A hard protective covering of bone or chitin, especially one which covers the dorsal portion of an animal.
- That which protects.
- So, little by little, youth loosens the hard carapace of confining custom their elders have built over the human heart.1928, Edward A. Ross, World Drift, New York; London: The Century Co., page 12
- This is all a massive failure of science to pierce the carapace of public ignorance.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
carapace meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malay and Thai
carapace in Tamil
- கரப்பஸ், பரிசைமூடி, முதுகுஓடு
carapace in Bengali
- কচ্ছপ, কাঁকড়ার খোলস
carapace in Malay
- hard protective covering
- sisik
carapace in Thai
- hard protective covering
- กระดอง grà-dɔɔng
Examples of carapace in a sentence
- The scientist attached a pinger to the carapace of the sea turtle to track its migration.
- Flattened carapace and claws, and large modified maxillipeds used to gather planktonic food.
- Its front half is composed of 3 or 4 carapace like parts previously named Hurdia and Proboscicaris.
Forms of carapace
| plural | carapaces |
|---|---|
| alternative form (nonstandard) | carapax |
Origin of carapace
Borrowed from French carapace (“tortoise shell”), from Spanish carapacho, 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.
Words formed from carapace
Questions about carapace
- What does carapace mean?
- Carapace means a hard protective covering of bone or chitin, especially one which covers the dorsal portion of an animal.
- What is carapace in Tamil?
- Carapace in Tamil is கரப்பஸ், பரிசைமூடி, முதுகுஓடு. See Carapace meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is carapace?
- Carapace is a noun.
- How do you pronounce carapace?
- Carapace is pronounced /ˈkæ.ɹəˌpeɪs/.
- What is the plural of carapace?
- The plural of carapace is carapaces.
Words near carapace in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: carapace (page history and authors); carapace (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); carapace (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carapace.wav.
Cite this entry: “carapace.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carapace. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.