Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various marine mollusks of the class Polyplacophora that live on rocks and have shells consisting of eight overlapping calcareous plates. Also called sea cradle.
- n. A tunic worn by men and women in ancient Greece.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A tunic; a usual garment of both men and women among the ancient Greeks. The chiton was essentially an undergarment, though very frequently the only garment worn, and was made in widely different styles; either very short, and commonly confined at the waist by a belt, or falling in voluminous folds to the feet; and either sleeveless or, especially after the Persian wars, with short or long sleeves. The materials used were various, and either plain white or colored and embroidered.
- n. In zoöl.: The typical genus of the family Chitonidæ (which see). In the older systems it was used for all the Chitonidæ or Polyplacophora, but in recent systems it is restricted to a small group of species.
- n. A member of the genus Chiton or family Chitonidæ.
- n. In zoology, an investing membrane or sheath.
Wiktionary
- n. A loose, woolen tunic, worn by both men and women in Ancient Greece.
- n. Any of various rock-clinging marine molluscs of the class Polyplacophora, including the genus Chiton.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An under garment among the ancient Greeks, nearly representing the modern shirt.
- n. (Zoöl.) One of a group of gastropod mollusks, with a shell composed of eight movable dorsal plates. See Polyplacophora.
WordNet 3.0
- n. primitive elongated bilaterally symmetrical marine mollusk having a mantle covered with eight calcareous plates
- n. a woolen tunic worn by men and women in ancient Greece
Etymologies
- From New Latin chiton. See above. (Wiktionary)
- Greek khitōn, tunic, from Central Semitic *kittān, from Akkadian kitû, kita'um, flax, linen, from Sumerian gada, gida. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Her purple chiton is gathered in classic folds across her bosom, and on her shoulders she wears a mantle of the same color.”
“Her chiton was the crimson of the royal House of Apepi: it stood out brilliantly, a speck of colour in the bleakness of bare rock and sand.”
“A young girl is about to join together on her left shoulder the chiton, which is fastened over the right shoulder by means of an agraffe.”
“We describe the oldest chiton, which is the oldest animal fossil, the oldest evidence for the trilobite ancestor; we believe we've solved the Shonisaur murder mystery; and now we're announcing the identity of this serial killer, the Triassic kraken.”
“A tiny marine creature called a chiton might hold the key to better artificial teeth and bones.”
“The soldiers divided "the clothes," or the "the cloak," "ta imatia" into four pieces, that is, Jesus' outer garments, not the tunic, the "chiton," which was the inner garment, which was in direct contact with his body.”
“[*] Workingmen often wore no himation, and had a kind of chiton (an exömis) which was especially arranged to leave them with free use of their arms.”
“Over the chiton is the aegis, much less long behind than in earlier art (cf.”
“The girl in the chiton stands a-tip toe and whispers in his ear.”
“Her garments are the basic chiton, peplos or stola.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chiton’.
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molluscs
very comprehensive list
of molluscs,who does not like
calamari? hmm yum
molluscigerous
100,000 species just in molluscsabalone, ammonite, argonaut, ataata, belon, bivalve, blackhead, bluepoint, brachiopod, buckie, byssal, byssus and 271 more...
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Scrabble
Beginning a list of useful & obscure Scrabble words ...
veinulet, titania, lactean, joual, anomie, edacious, axite, taxite, dace, oorie, gowany, moire and 5 more...
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animals (2 syllable)
A list of common animal names. Keep the list to 2 syllable words.No scientific names. No proper names like 'Fluffy' the elephant.Insects and other creatures (even ficticious like 'dragon') are we...
baboon, rabbit, raptor, dragon, camel, hornet, llama, cobra, cheetah, penguin, puppy, dolphin and 87 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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fitting words
a list of words from the indo european root ar- and variations : to fit together
ambry, rede, coarctate, anarthrous, artiodactyl, exordium, harmony, army, armoire, arm, armada, armadillo and 349 more...
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Ancient Greek Costume Box
cestus, cestus (gloves), myrmex, sphairai, buskin, cothurnus, calotte, camisia, chlamys, chiton, exomis, tunic and 5 more...
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The Sirens of Titan
Words gathered while reading The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.
edwardian, rakehell, chrono-synclastic..., parvenu, chiton, dottle, ort, residua, narwhal, lulu, peyotl, peignoir and 49 more...
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Aristotle Detective
trierarch, choregos, chiton, phratry, deme, threnody, basileus, metoikos
Tweets
Looking for tweets for chiton.
chained_bear "Tympana, or kettle drums, have been found at the shrine of Artemis Limnatis in southern Greece, and this instrument, Lawler claims, was 'helpful in inducing frenzy.' Dances to Artemis were known to be especially wild in Sparta—though whether in a religious or sexual sense we do not know, only that women and girls danced wearing 'only one chiton,' or the equivalent of a slip."
—Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 33 Mar 12, 2009