testa

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See also: testá, tèsta, and tésta

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin testa.

Noun

testa (plural testas or testae or testæ)

  1. (botany) A seed coat.
    The testa develops from the tissue, the integument, originally surrounding the ovule.
    • 1840, James Scott Bowerbank, A History of the Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay, page 30:
      The seeds are furnished with a reticulated testa, very much in appearance like that of the seeds of two closely-allied pericarps in the cabinet of my friend Mr. Ward, of Wellclose-square, the names of which I have been unable to obtain, but which present strong evidence of belonging to the Malvaceæ.
    • 1969, C. W. Bennett, Seed Transmission of Plant Viruses, Alison Smith, Advances in Virus Research, Volume 14, page 224,
      In tests with the Lincoln and Virginia varieties of cowpea, Crowley (1959) found that, in plants infected with bean southern mosaic virus before blossoming, the virus was present in nearly 100% of the testae and endosperms of seeds of both varieties, but could not be detected in the embryos.
    • 1977, Commonwealth Scientific, Industrial Research Organization, Australian Journal of Plant Physiology, page 354:
      Thus, two conditions must be satisfied for the testas to have this effect: contact between the testas and the radicle, and the presence of at least half of the testas.
    • 2005, D. W. Dickson, D. De Waele, Nematode Parasites of Peanut, Michel Luc, Richard A. Sikora, John Bridge, Plant Parasitic Nematodes in Subtropical and Tropical Agriculture, page 419,
      A. arachidis is a parasite of pods, testae, roots and hypocotyls, but not the cotyledons, embryos or other parts of the plant (Bos, 1977a; Bridge et al., 1977).
    • 2007, J. Smartt, “Evolution of American Phaseolus beans under domestication”, in Peter John Ucko, G. W. Dimbleby, editors, The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, page 458:
      One of the most remarkable features of cultivated beans is the enormous range of testa colours and patterns which can be found.
  2. (marine biology) The external calciferous shell, or endoskeleton, of an echinoderm; the test.

Anagrams

Catalan

Etymology 1

Inherited from Latin testa (“burned clay; baked earthenware”).

Pronunciation

Noun

testa f (plural testes)

  1. (Empordanese) head
    Synonym: cap
  2. end (of a post, plank, barrel, etc.)
  3. (botany) testa (the outer layer of a seed coat)
Derived terms
Related terms

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

Adjective

testa

  1. feminine singular of test (“tense”)

Etymology 3

Pronunciation

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testar (“to test”):
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Etymology 4

Pronunciation

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testar (“to witness”):
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

French

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tɛs.ta/
  • Audio(file)

Verb

testa

  1. third-person singular past historic of tester

Anagrams

Galician

Etymology 1

From Old Galician-Portuguese testa (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), from Latin testa (“earthen pot”).

Pronunciation

Noun

testa f (plural testas)

  1. forehead
    • 1390, José Luís Pensado Tomé (ed.), Os Miragres de Santiago. Versión gallega del Códice latino del siglo XII atribuido al papa Calisto I. Madrid: C.S.I.C., page 133:
      Et avia ẽno rrostro hũu palmo et meo en longo et ẽna barua hũu palmo, et ẽno nariz hũu meo palmo; et ẽna testa hũu palmo et pouquo mais
      He had a palmspan and a half in his face, and in the beard a palmspan, and half one in the nose; and in the front he had one palmspan and a little more
    • 1434, A. López Carreira (ed.), Libro de Notas de Álvaro Afonso, doc. 90:
      os quaes roçiins era huun delles ven preto con hun signal enna testa et ho outro ben çerbyño con huna mancha enna testa
      one of that horses was really dark, with a signal in his forehead, and the other was tawny with a spot in his forehead
    Synonym: fronte
  2. (figurative) the whole head of a person
    • 1697, several authors, Fiestas Minervales, Santiago: Antonio Frayz, page 34:
      Dubido do que farei / Para saír desta enfeita / Maxino roer as uñas / E bourar mui ben na testa
      I'm dubious on what to do / To exit of this preparation / I imagine gnawing my nails / And ably beating my head
    Synonyms: cabeza, cachola, croca
  3. limit of a property
    Synonyms: derrego, estremeiro, límite, lindeiro
  4. fore
    Synonym: fronte
  5. lid
    Synonym: tello
Derived terms

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation

Adjective

testa f sg

  1. feminine singular of testo

Etymology 3

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testar:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

References

  • “testa” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
  • “testa” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006-2016.
  • “testa” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
  • “testa” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
  • “testa” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

Italian

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Italian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia it

From Latin testa. The semantic development is earthen pot → skull → head.

Noun

testa f (plural teste, diminutive testìna or testolìna or (uncommon, usually of butchered animals) testicciòla or (literary, uncommon, usually of butchered animals) testicciuòla, augmentative testóna or (with specialized meanings) testóne m, pejorative testàccia, derogatory testùccia)

  1. (anatomy) head
  2. (numismatics) obverse (of a coin)
  3. (anatomy) head (of a bone)
  4. (rail transport, singular only, uncountable) head (of a train), the first car(s)
    Antonym: coda
    La prima classe è in testa al treno ― The first class is at the head of the train
Synonyms
  • (part of the body): capo
Derived terms
Descendants
  • → Alemannic German: Teste
  • → Spanish: testa

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testare:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

Latin

Etymology

Unknown:

Pronunciation

Noun

testa f (genitive testae); first declension

  1. a piece of burned clay, brick, tile
  2. (transferred sense) a piece of baked earthenware
    1. an earthen pot, pitcher, jug, urn
    2. a sherd, potsherd
    3. a piece of bone
    4. ostracon (= ὄστρακον (óstrakon))
    5. the shell of shellfish or of testaceous animals, shellfish
    6. (Late Latin) skull
      Synonyms: calva, calvāria, crānium
  3. a sort of clapping with the flat of the hands (as if with two tiles), in token of applause, invented by Nero

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case Singular Plural
Nominative testa testae
Genitive testae testārum
Dative testae testīs
Accusative testam testās
Ablative testā testīs
Vocative testa testae

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

References

  • “testa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “testa”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • testa in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • testa in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • “testa”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • testa in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
  • “testa”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
  • Cravens, Thomas D. Cross-language evidence in etymology: The origin of 'testa' as 'head' in Romance. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 83: 53–60.
  1. ^ “testa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  2. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 617

Latvian

Noun

testa m

  1. genitive singular of tests

Lombard

Alternative forms

  • tèsta (Classical Milanese Orthography)

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtɛsta/ (Milanese)

Noun

testa f

  1. head

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of teste:
    1. simple past
    2. past participle

Occitan

Noun

testa f (plural testas)

  1. Alternative form of tèsta

Old Occitan

Etymology

From Latin testa.

Noun

testa f (oblique plural testas, nominative singular testa, nominative plural testas)

  1. head

Descendants

Portuguese

testa

Pronunciation

 

  • Rhymes: (Brazil) -ɛstɐ, (Portugal, Rio de Janeiro) -ɛʃtɐ
  • Hyphenation: tes‧ta

Etymology 1

From Old Galician-Portuguese testa, from Latin testa.

Noun

testa f (plural testas)

  1. forehead (part of the face above the eyebrows and below the hairline)
Derived terms

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testar:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French tester.

Pronunciation

Verb

a testa (third-person singular present testează, past participle testat) 1st conj.

  1. (transitive) to test; to try
    Synonym: încerca

Conjugation

    conjugation of testa (first conjugation, -ez- infix)
infinitive a testa
gerund testând
past participle testat
number singular plural
person 1st person 2nd person 3rd person 1st person 2nd person 3rd person
indicative eu tu el/ea noi voi ei/ele
present testez testezi testează testăm testați testează
imperfect testam testai testa testam testați testau
simple perfect testai testași testă testarăm testarăți testară
pluperfect testasem testaseși testase testaserăm testaserăți testaseră
subjunctive eu tu el/ea noi voi ei/ele
present să testez să testezi să testeze să testăm să testați să testeze
imperative — tu — — voi —
affirmative testează testați
negative nu testa nu testați

References

Romansch

Etymology

From Latin testa (“pot”).

Noun

testa f (plural testas)

  1. (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Surmiran, Puter, Vallader) head

Usage notes

In Rumantsch Grischun, the literary standard language, testa is used in the figurative sense, and chau in the anatomical sense. Usage differs somewhat, however, between dialects.

Synonyms

Sicilian

Etymology

From Latin testa (“earthen pot”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /t̪ʲɛs(ʃ)ta/
  • Hyphenation: te‧sta

Noun

testa f (plural testi)

  1. (anatomy) head
  2. intelligent person
  3. intelligence

Spanish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtesta/
  • Rhymes: -esta
  • Syllabification: tes‧ta

Etymology 1

From Latin testa. Compare the inherited Old Spanish tiesta.

Noun

testa f (plural testas)

  1. head
  2. test (shell or endoskeleton of an echinoderm or certain plankton)
Derived terms

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

testa

  1. inflection of testar:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

Swedish

Pronunciation

Verb

testa (present testar, preterite testade, supine testat, imperative testa)

  1. to try, to attempt; (to see if a specific action is possible; also to see if a device works properly)

Conjugation

Conjugation of testa (weak)
Active Passive
Infinitive testa testas
Supine testat testats
Imperative testa —
Imper. plural1 testen —
Present Past Present Past
Indicative testar testade testas testades
Ind. plural1 testa testade testas testades
Subjunctive2 teste testade testes testades
Participles
Present participle testande
Past participle testad
1 Archaic. 2 Dated. See the appendix on Swedish verbs.

Further reading

Anagrams

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