Mar-tél'lo Tow'er

[It. mar-tello, hammer; originally towers erected on the coasts of Sicily and Sardinia against the pirates in the time of Charles the Fifth. See supra.] (Fort.) A building of masonry, generally circular, usually erected on the sea-coast, with a gun on the summit mounted on a traversing platform, so as to be fired in any direction. Scott.

☞ The English borrowed the name of the tower from Corsica in 1794. Towers of this kind are found in this country, as on Tybee Island.