Mid 16th century: apparently an alteration of French tortue (see tortoise).

• English sailors gave the turtle its name in the 1650s. They probably based it on tortue, an early form of tortoise (Late Middle English), from French tortue and Spanish tortuga ‘tortoise’ of uncertain origin. A boat is said to turn turtle when it turns upside down, because it then looks a bit like the shell of a turtle, or because it is as helpless as a turtle flipped over on its back. Mock turtle soup, inspiration for the Mock Turtle in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, is soup made with a calf's head, in imitation of turtle soup, once an important part of grand banquets. The turtle in turtle dove is a completely different word whose ultimate source is Latin turtur, an imitation of the bird's cooing. ‘The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land’ is from the biblical Song of Solomon, a reference to the fact that the turtle dove is a migratory bird.