Palladium
//pəˈleɪdiəm// name, noun
name, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A safeguard.
"The trial by jury is the Palladium of our civil rights."
- 2 A chemical element (symbol Pd) with an atomic number of 46: a rare, lustrous silvery-white metal. countable, uncountable
- 3 a silver-white metallic element of the platinum group that resembles platinum; occurs in some copper and nickel ores; does not tarnish at ordinary temperatures and is used (alloyed with gold) in jewelry wordnet
- 4 A single atom of this element. countable
Proper Noun
- 1 A wooden statue of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend.
Example
More examples"These artefacts are the depictions of the deity that serves as the spiritual and political palladium of the nation."
Etymology
Etymology 1
The sense of "safeguard" comes from Latin Palladium (the image of Pallas that protected Troy), from Ancient Greek Παλλάδιον (Palládion), from Παλλάς (Pallás), an epithet used before Athena.
Etymology 2
The element was named after Pallas, an asteroid that had been discovered two years before the element.
Related phrases
More for "palladium"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.