Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The sacred shield of Mars, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa, and declared by the diviners to be the palladium of Rome so long as it should be kept in the city. With eleven other ancilia, made in imitation of the original, it was given into the custody of the Salii, or priests of Mars, who carried it annually in solemn procession through Rome during the festival of Mars in the beginning of March.
Wiktionary
- n. historical The sacred shield of the Ancient Romans, said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa. It was the palladium of Rome.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Rom. Antiq.) The sacred shield of the Romans, said to have-fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa. It was the palladium of Rome.
Etymologies
- Latin (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The 'ancile' or sacred shield of Numa hung lustrous in the air over this very city, till that pious prince took it down and hung it in the temple of Jupiter.”
“It is a sophisma pigrum, and (as Bacon hath said) the arrogance of pusillanimity, which lifts up the idol of a mortal's fancy and commands us to fall down and worship it, as a work of divine wisdom, an ancile or palladium fallen from heaven.”
“Miserable men," he says elsewhere, "you refuse to worship the ancile, yet you worship the wood of the cross, and sign it on your foreheads, and fix it on your doors.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ancile’.
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Relating To: The Sky
Words of, about, or relating to the heavens.
firmament, horizon, celestial, pleiades, supernal, welkin, cerulean, hypaethral, abatjour, upaithric, canopus, cerulific and 40 more...
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Armor
Armet, helm, helmet, panoply, mail, Armour, shield, targe, scutcheon, escutcheon, ancile, buckler and 4 more...
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Gallimaufry
...words to be reassigned as time allows.
vade, viduity, surd, thropple, horary, sorites, ancile, roscid, spraints, birl, marmite, voxel and 68 more...
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