Meaning & use
Terrapin
Last updated
A small turtle that lives in fresh or brackish water, especially the diamondback terrapin of the eastern United States.
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Fishermen along the marsh sometimes spot a terrapin sunning itself on a half-submerged log.
The diamondback terrapin was once so prized for soup that its population crashed in the early 1900s.
A note on using this word
The word comes from an Algonquian language via 'torope,' and in American English is distinguished from freshwater 'turtles' and land 'tortoises' by its brackish-water habitat.
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