Pl. torteaux. Also pl. 5 tortellis, 6 tourteaulx, torteaulxes, 6–8 torteauxes, 7 tortauxes, 8 torteaux’s, tourteaux, tourteauxes. [a. F. tourteau ‘a large round cake or flat bannock of bread,’ a mass of oilcake, a wooden disk used as a crusher, and in heraldry as below; in OFr. tortel (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), in Guernsey tourtel (= Pr. tortelh, Cat. tortell), deriv. of tourte (TOURTE, TORTE).]
1. Her. A roundle gules; the specific name of a small red circular figure charged upon a shield, supposed to represent a cake of bread.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Her., e vj, Ther be also tortellis yt be litill Cakys the wich be grettir then ballys & [= if] tharmys be truly made as here it is opyn…. Portat tres tortellas rubias in campo aureo.… He berith golde & iij. Cakys of gowles.
1530. in Ancestor, XI. (1904), 180. A lymmers hede rased sable with a coller siluer full of tourteaulx.
1562. Leigh, Armorie, 151 b. He beareth or, x torteauxes…. These haue been called of olde blazoures, wastelles, and are cakes of breade.
1725. Coats, Dict. Her., Tourteaux, according to the French, and Tourteauxes, as we make the Plural Number in English, are small Rounds … in England,… they are always Red; but the French give the same Name to such as are of any other Colour, expressing the same…. The Tourteaux in Latin are call’d Tortellæ.
1825. Gentl. Mag., XCV. I. 305/1. Sir Thomas Dacre … used these arms: Argent, a chevron Sable between three Torteaux, on each an escallop Argent.
1894. Parker’s Gloss. Her., Torteau...: the name now always applied to a roundle gules.… The figure is said to have been intended to represent the sacred Host.
† 2. A flat cake, a pancake. Obs.
(Cf. quot. 1562 in 1.)
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, II. IX. xix. § 3. 1652. Torteaux and Bignets, and many other sorts of food…. They make pottage, and Torteaux and Galletus.
