Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The plastron of a turtle or tortoise.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

under- +‎ shell

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Examples

  • A veterinary surgeon removed the freakishly large bladder stones from a desert tortoise at the San Francisco Zoo and patched the hole in the tortoise's undershell with fiberglass, in a procedure the surgeon likened to "fixing a ding in a surfboard."

    Boing Boing 2005

  • Once on the table, he lifted the skoldpadda with his fingers supporting the turtle's flat undershell, giving them all a good look at it.

    The Dark Tower King, Stephen 2004

  • Whatever weapon he used burned right through the lander's ablative tiles like they weren't there - until it got to the thin steel undershell.

    Fall of Angels Modesitt, L. E. 1996

  • He looked at his victim for a moment, then slid the chisel under it and flopped it over on its back, slapping it twice'with the flat and cracking the undershell.

    The Fuzzy Papers Piper, H. Beam 1962

  • He looked at his victim for a moment, then slid the chisel under it and flopped it over on its back, slapping it twice with the flat and cracking the undershell.

    Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper 1934

  • But beheading and breaking the undershell, they all do that. "

    The Fuzzy Papers Piper, H. Beam 1962

  • But beheading and breaking the undershell, they all do that. "

    Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper 1934

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