conning tower (plural conning towers)

1. (nautical) The armoured control tower of an early iron warship from which the ship was navigated in battle.
2. (nautical) A connecting structure between the bridge and pressure hull of a submarine; in larger, modern submarines it contains the captain's cabin and is known as the sail.

   Synonyms: fin, sail

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I waited until half an hour after Benson had gone on duty, and then I went on deck, passing through the conning-tower where Benson sat, and looking at the compass. It showed that our course was north by west--that is, one point west of north, which was, for our assumed position, about right.