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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A short mantle fastened at the shoulder, worn by men in ancient Greece.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In ancient Greek costume, a form of mantle which left both arms free, worn especially by equestrians, hunters, and travelers, and by soldiers. The chlamys, which was much smaller than the himation, consisted of an oblong piece of stuff having three straight sides and one long side curved outward. It was worn by bringing the two ends of the straight side opposite the curved side together around the neck, and fastening them with a buckle or fibula. The buckle was pulled around to the front, to either shoulder, or to the back, to suit the convenience of the wearer. The extremities of the curved side were weighted so as to hang vertically; and when the chlamys was caught together on one shoulder, as it was commonly worn, these hanging ends were likened to wings by the old writers. The paludamentum of the later Roman emperors was called chlamys by the Greeks.
  2. n. A purple cope; one of the pontifical vestments.
  3. n. In zoology: A genus of phytophagous beetles, of the family Chrysomelidæ or Cryptocephalidæ, covered with tuberosities, having the prothorax grooved to receive the short antennæ; and the legs compressed and retractile into cavities. The larvæ live in sacs or cases made of their own excrement. The North American species are few in number and of small size.
  4. n. A genus of bivalve mollusks: synonymous with

Wiktionary

  1. n. historical A short cloak caught up on the shoulder, worn by hunters, soldiers, and horsemen in Ancient Greece.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A loose and flowing outer garment, worn by the ancient Greeks; a kind of cloak.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. collective term for the outer parts of a flower consisting of the calyx and corolla and enclosing the stamens and pistils
  2. n. a short mantle or cape fastened at the shoulder; worn by men in ancient Greece

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek χλαμύς. (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin, from Greek khlamus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The chlamys was a heavy woolen shawl, red or purple.”

    Buried Cities, Complete Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae

  • “The hose are green in colour and plain; and the chlamys, which is blue, has a red lining with”

    Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Vol. 03 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna

  • “The chlamys was a foreign warrior’s garment, hardly the typical uniform of a Roman woman, though tellingly it was the dress of Virgil’s tragic heroine of the Aeneid, Queen Dido of Carthage, who like Agrippina had taken on traditionally male responsibilities, attempting to found a new kingdom for her people.62”

    Simon & Schuster: Caesars’ Wives

  • “The paludamentum, a military style of garment reminiscent of the chlamys that Agrippina Minor once scandalously wore in public, had previously been reserved for the wardrobe of emperors.”

    Simon & Schuster: Caesars’ Wives

  • “The event attracted an audience of thousands from the city and the provinces and involved nineteen thousand player-combatants navigating the twelve-mile-long lake in two teams of fifty ships a side.61 One of those present in the wooden viewing stands that day was the great Roman writer Pliny the Elder, who described the dazzling sight of Agrippina dressed in a golden chlamys, a Greek version of the Roman military cape that her husband was wearing.”

    Simon & Schuster: Caesars’ Wives

  • “Beware! his hair filled with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys.”

    Les Miserables

  • “After the Tsar recited the Nicene Creed as a profession of faith, and after an invocation of the Holy Ghost and a litany, the emperor assumed the purple chlamys, and the crown was then presented to him.”

    Imperial Crown of Russia

  • “Socrates says he felt when the chlamys blew aside and showed him the limbs of Charmides?”

    Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions

  • “And on her other side sat a little boy not yet three, tricked out like a king of Macedonia—a wide-brimmed purple hat with the diadem tied around its crown, purple chlamys, purple tunic, purple boots.”

    Simon & Schuster: Antony and Cleopatra

  • “High above the people, upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield, wrapped in a purple chlamys, with a laurel wreath on his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius ....”

    Dream tales and prose poems

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hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. cape
  1. mantle

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. chlamydes

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  • knitandpurl "The figure of Mercury had become both more theatrical and more human: no longer a statue, he was draped in a freshly laundered chlamys that set off his well-formed but slight physique; the broad-brimmed petasus sat charmingly on his curls."
    - "Description of a Masque" by John Ashbery, p 29 of the Noonday Press paperback edition of A Wave Apr 7, 2012

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‘chlamys’ has been looked up 1037 times, loved by 1 person, added to 10 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 17.