Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as asp or aspic. Also used as a generic term.
  • noun A genus of coleopterous insects. Germar.
  • noun A genus of lepidopterous insects.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A type of round shield borne by ancient Greek soldiers
  • noun archaic An asp or generic venomous snake
  • noun palynology A prominent ring of thickened exine around a pore on a pollen grain

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun horned vipers

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin aspis

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Examples

  • Common reptile species include asp viper Vipera aspis, viviparous lizard Lacerta vivipara, wall lizard Podarcis muralis and the green lizard Lacerta viridis.

    Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn, Switzerland 2008

  • An enormous and heavy shield—the aspis or hoplon—some three feet in diameter covered half the body and completed the panoply.

    THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES Robert B. Strassler 2003

  • An enormous and heavy shield—the aspis or hoplon—some three feet in diameter covered half the body and completed the panoply.

    THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES Robert B. Strassler 2003

  • The generic appellations of the several species of Ferns are derived thus: _Aspidium_, from _aspis_, a shield, because the spores are enclosed in bosses; _Pteris_, from _pteerux_, a wing, having doubly pinnate fronds; or from _pteron_, a feather, having feathery fronds;

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • Asp can be carried back to the _aspis_ of the Romans, no trace being found in the dim vistas of preceding tongues.

    The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year William Beebe 1919

  • The viper mentioned in Acts 28: 3 was probably the vipera aspis, or the Mediterranean viper.

    Easton's Bible Dictionary M.G. Easton 1897

  • The shield ([Greek: aspis]), we are told by followers of Reichel, was only worn by princes who could afford to keep chariots, charioteers, and squires of the body to arm and disarm them.

    Homer and His Age Andrew Lang 1878

  • On the other hand, the archers of the Algonquins in their wars with the Iroquois, about 1610, used clubs and tomahawks but no spears, no missiles but arrows, and their leather shield was precisely the [Greek: amphibrotae aspis] of Homer, "covering the whole of a man."

    Homer and His Age Andrew Lang 1878

  • In _Iliad_, II. 388, the shield (_aspis_) is spoken of as "covering a man about" ([Greek: _amphibrotae_]), while, in the heat of battle, the baldric (_telamon_), or belt of the shield, "shall be wet with sweat."

    Homer and His Age Andrew Lang 1878

  • The use of the aspis in Homer, therefore, throws no suspicion on the concomitant use of the corslet.

    Homer and His Age Andrew Lang 1878

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