ROSTRUM

noun (plural rostra or ~s) see: rodent Date: 1542 1. \Latin Rostra, plural, a platform for speakers in the Roman Forum decorated with the beaks of captured ships, from plural of ~] an ancient Roman platform for public orators, a stage for public speaking, a raised platform on a stage, the curved end of a ship's prow, a bodily part or process suggesting a bird's bill: as, the beak, snout, or proboscis of any of various insects or arachnids, the often spinelike anterior median prolongation of the carapace of a crustacean (as a crayfish or lobster)