English edit

 
A turtle with a tectiform carapace
 
Tectiforms (cave paintings) from the cavern of Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne

Etymology edit

From New Latin tēctiformis (roof-shaped), from tēctum (roof) + fōrma.

Pronunciation edit

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈtɛk.tɪ.fɔːm/
    • (file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈtɛk.tə.fɔɹm/

Adjective edit

tectiform (comparative more tectiform, superlative most tectiform)

  1. (biology, anthropology) Roof-shaped; sloping downwards on two sides from a raised central ridge.

Translations edit

Noun edit

tectiform (plural tectiforms)

  1. (anthropology) A type of cave painting or engraving, having in its simplest form the shape of an upward-pointing wedge or arrow, thought to represent the roof of a tent or rudimentary building.
    • 1924, American Anthropologist, Volume 26, New Series, page 48,
      The tectiforms reproduce in a remarkable manner the simple shelters, tents, and huts in use today among primitive and nomadic races in various parts of the world.
    • 2014, David Maclagan, Line Let Loose: Scribbling, Doodling and Automatic Drawing[1], page 8:
      Because of their composition and the coexistence in them of meanders and tectiforms they differ from chimpanzee drawings, which are in many other ways a comparable phenomenon.
    • 2015, Molly Fuller, Robert Miltner, “Chapter 9: Land as Ekphrastic Prompt for Memoirist Prose Poems in N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain”, in Sandra Lee Kleppe, editor, Ekphrasis in American Poetry: The Colonial Period to the 21st Century, page 162:
      Inclusion of both ideomorphs and tectiforms as proto-art, and adaptation of the images to the natural textures of the rock surfaces as proto-cinema, suggests that the need to animate and annotate go beyond mere literal representation.