PALLADIUM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Palladium

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/pəlˈeɪdiəm/ Listen

noun

Palladium n.

(Gr. Antiq.) Any statue of the goddess Pallas; esp., the famous statue on the preservation of which depended the safety of ancient Troy.

Hence: That which affords effectual protection or security; a safeguard; as, the trial by jury is the palladium of our civil rights.

Palladium n. (Chem.) A rare metallic element of the light platinum group, found native, and also alloyed with platinum and gold. It is a silver-white metal resembling platinum, and like it permanent and untarnished in the air, but is more easily fusible, with a melting point of 1555° C. It can also be prepared as a finely divided black powder. It is unique in its power of absorbing hydrogen, which it does to the extent of nearly a thousand volumes, forming the alloy Pd2H. It is used for graduated circles and verniers, for plating certain silver goods, and somewhat in dentistry. It was so named in 1804 by Wollaston from the asteroid Pallas, which was discovered in 1802. Symbol Pd. Atomic number, 46. Atomic weight, 106.42. Density 12.0.

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Etymology of 'Palladium'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Palladium" Quotes from Famous Books

... offer in regard to the shield which efficacious grace and the palladium of the faith may form for dangerous tendencies; for Catholics, that is a matter for the casuist or the confessor to decide; but, as far as Delsarte is concerned, had he beaten down Satan in a way to rouse the jealousy of St. Michael, had he made the heathen Socrates give precedence ...

— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... is ascribed to sundry poets, including Homer, next describes the madness and death of Ajax, the arrival of Philoctetes with the arrows of Hercules, the death of Paris, the purloining of the Palladium, the stratagem of the wooden horse, and the death ...

— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... Argos, called Tydides, from his father; was, next to Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks at the Trojan war; fought under the protection of Athene against both Hector and AEneas, and even wounded both Aphrodite and Ares; dared along with Ulysses to carry off the Palladium from Troy; was first in the chariot race in honour of Patroclus, and overcame ...

— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Unless the man himself proves traitor, the littlenesses of life are powerless to conquer him. In fact, the invincible courage of the thoroughly disciplined spirit in the midst of doubt and external discouragement has never been, more nobly expressed than by Arnold in such poems as 'Palladium' and (from a different point of view) 'The ...

— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... immense value of your national Union, to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion ...

— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

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