Etymology

Martello tower

Today it means: A short sturdy round masonry fort, especially one constructed at various coastal points in the British Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Full definition →

Corsican Torra di Mortella ← Italian martello
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The story

  1. Italian · derived frommartello“hammer”
  2. Corsican · borrowed fromTorra di Mortella
  3. English todayMartello tower

From a corruption of Corsican Torra di Mortella (literally “Tower of Mortella”), a tower in Corsica which was used as the basis for the design; possibly influenced by Italian martello (“hammer”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.