aspis

English

Vase showing hoplites bearing aspides.

Etymology

From Latin aspis

Noun

aspis (plural aspides)

1. A type of round shield borne by ancient Greek soldiers
   • 1963, William Kurtz Wimsatt, What to Say About a Poem and Other Essays^[1], page 39:

     "shield both large and tough" has never said that aspides are small and weak […]

2. (archaic) An asp or generic venomous snake
   • 1588, Robert Greene, “The History of Dorastus and Fawnia”, in Pandosto: The Triumph of Time^[2], published 1907:

     Flesh dipped in the sea Ægeum will never be sweet; the herb Trigion being once bit with an aspis never groweth, and conscience once stained with innocent blood is always tied to a guilty remorse.

3. (palynology) A prominent ring of thickened exine around a pore on a pollen grain
   • 1974, Eugene Cecil Ogden, Manual for Sampling Airborne Pollen^[3], ISBN 0028498208, page 128:

     As might be expected, characters of the aspides themselves are not of much value in pollen identification, but they are easily recognized and many three-pored, aspidate grains are broadly categorized as "betuloid" in studies of airborne pollen.

Coordinate terms

• (type of shield): hoplon
• (ring of exine): annulus

Derived terms

• aspidate

Anagrams

• apsis

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French

Noun

aspis m

1. Plural form of aspi

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Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspis, “round shield or asp”).

Noun

aspis (genitive aspidis); f, third declension

1. asp (venomous snake)
2. viper

Inflection

Number	Singular	Plural
nominative	aspis	aspidēs
genitive	aspidis	aspidum
dative	aspidī	aspidibus
accusative	aspidem	aspidēs
ablative	aspide	aspidibus
vocative	aspis	aspidēs