palladium means A wooden statue of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend.
palladium is pronounced /pəˈleɪdiəm/.
Why “palladium” is a great word
A rare, lustrous silvery-white metallic element (symbol Pd, atomic number 46), and, by extension, a foundational safeguard upon which the security of a state or institution rests. From Latin Palladium (the statue of Pallas that protected Troy), from Ancient Greek Παλλάδιον (Palládion), from Παλλάς (Pallás), an epithet of Athena; the element was named in 1803 after the asteroid Pallas. Unlike "platinum," its heavier, denser sibling, or a general "talisman" for luck, palladium is the singular, architectural guarantee: the hidden catalyst cleaning exhaust in the modern city's veins, the bright, untarnishing alloy in a fine watch's heart, and the silent electrical contact completing a crucial circuit. It is the small thing upon which everything depends—the secular age's answer to the divine statue, a material assurance against collapse.
Etymology
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.
name
- A wooden statue of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend.
noun
- A safeguard.“The trial by jury is the Palladium of our civil rights.”
- A chemical element (symbol Pd) with an atomic number of 46: a rare, lustrous silvery-white metal.
- A single atom of this element.
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