Word.ws English Dictionary

small tortoiseshell

small tortoiseshell noun: the colourful butterfly Aglais urticae, of the family Nymphalidae.

Noun

small tortoiseshell (plural small tortoiseshells)

  1. The colourful butterfly Aglais urticae, of the family Nymphalidae.
    • Researchers found that 15 of 17 species which commonly live on farmland – including the small tortoiseshell, small skipper and wall butterfly – show declines associated with increasing neonic use. […] Other common farmland butterflies to have suffered steep declines include the small tortoiseshell...2015 November 24, Patrick Barkham, “Pesticide may be reason butterfly numbers are falling in UK, says study”, in The Guardian

Forms of small tortoiseshell

pluralsmall tortoiseshells

Questions about small tortoiseshell

What does small tortoiseshell mean?
Small tortoiseshell means the colourful butterfly Aglais urticae, of the family Nymphalidae.
What part of speech is small tortoiseshell?
Small tortoiseshell is a noun.
What is the plural of small tortoiseshell?
The plural of small tortoiseshell is small tortoiseshells.

Words near small tortoiseshell in the dictionary

  1. small Solar System body
  2. small stuff
  3. small talk
  4. small text
  5. small time
  6. small tortoiseshell
  7. small tortoiseshells
  8. small town
  9. small townie
  10. small townies
  11. small towns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: small tortoiseshell (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.

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