Scutum

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In Roman antiquity, a large oblong shield of heavy-armed Roman legionaries, as distinguished from the small round shield, or clypeus. It was generally oval or semi-cylindrical in shape, made of wood or wickerwork covered with leather, and defended with plates of iron.
2. n. In anatomy, the knee pan; the rotula or patella. See cut under knee-joint.
3. n. In zoöl, a plate, shield, buckler, or some similar part; a large scale; a scute; a scutellum; especially, some piece of dermal armor or exoskeletal formation, as one of the bony plates of a sturgeon or a crocodile, a piece of the shell of a turtle, a ring or plate of an armadillo, one of the great scales of a pangolin, the frontal shield of a coot, etc. See cuts under Acipenser, armadillo, carapace, coot, crocodile, pangolin, and shield. Specifically
4. n. In old law, a penthouse or awning.
5. n. In botany, the broad expansion of the style in plants of the milkweed family, especially in Stapelia.

Wiktionary

1. n. astronomy A small autumn constellation of the northern sky, said to resemble a shield. It lies between the constellations of Aquila, Sagittarius, and the tail of Serpens.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Rom. Antiq.) An oblong shield made of boards or wickerwork covered with leather, with sometimes an iron rim; -- carried chiefly by the heavy-armed infantry.
2. n. (O. Eng. Law), obsolete A penthouse or awning.
3. n. The second and largest of the four parts forming the upper surface of a thoracic segment of an insect. It is preceded by the prescutum and followed by the scutellum. See the Illust. under Thorax.
4. n. One of the two lower valves of the operculum of a barnacle.