PALLADIUM • DICTIONARY ONE.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

... 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

... palladium, or placing the first corner stone of an edifice, the height and magnificence of whose superstructure ... can only become great in proportion to the excellence of its foundation.... If any doubt remain amongst you with respect to the force ...

— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... eye, Fixed, unerring, sleepless, bright, Watch, when danger hovers nigh, From his lofty mountain height; While the stripes and stars shall wave O'er this treasure, pure and free— The land's Palladium, it shall save The home and ...

— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... Chasuble which St. Ildefonse received from the Virgin Mary, and other similar things: the Pagans boasted before them of having received a sacred shield as a mark of the preservation of their city of Rome, and the Trojans boasted before them of having received miraculously from Heaven their Palladium, or their Idol of Pallas, which came, they said, to takes its place in the temple which they had erected in ...

— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... excellence. In this department, again, I noticed the tendency to whimsical combinations and ludicrous analogies which seemed to influence many of the arrangements of the museum. The wooden statue so well known as the Palladium of Troy was placed in close apposition with the wooden head of General Jackson, which was stolen a few years since from the bows of ...

— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

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