Turret

How to spell turret

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce turret

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does turret mean?

1. nounA small tower projecting from the wall or corner of a building, especially a castle.
2. nounA rotating, armoured mounting for a gun on a tank, warship, or aircraft.

Turret in a sentence

• The castle's north turret offered a clear view of the valley.

• The tank's turret swung slowly toward the target.

• A narrow spiral staircase led up into the stone turret.

• The gunner sat inside the cramped steel turret.

Where does turret come from?

Language of origin: French

Turret entered English in the early 1300s from the Old French word torete (also spelled tourete), which was a diminutive of tour, meaning 'tower'. That French word descended from the Latin turris, the ordinary word for a tower or a tall defensive structure, a root that also gives us the modern word 'tower' itself. The diminutive ending meant that a turret was originally a 'little tower', a small tower that projected from the side or corner of a larger castle or wall. From this architectural beginning the meaning extended in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the rotating, armoured gun mount on a warship, tank, or aircraft, since that structure resembles a small protruding tower. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the single t after the doubled r, giving turret rather than the tempting 'turrett' or 'turet'.

How the word is built

• tur- (from Latin turris: tower)
• -et (diminutive suffix: little)