pelta

English

Etymology

Latin , a shield, from Ancient Greek πέλτη (péltē, “shield”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛltə/
• Homophone: pelter (non-rhotic)

Noun

pelta (plural peltas or peltae)

1. (historical) A small shield, especially one of an approximately elliptical form, or crescent-shaped.
   • 1970, John Kinloch Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon, page 112:

     Xenophon also mentions bronze peltae, but probably (like hoplite shields) they were only faced with a thin covering of bronze.

   • 1992, Guy Michael Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-painting: Myth and Performance:

     The other subject illustrated in these scenes of silens carrying peltas appears to be a battle.

   • 2004, Tim Everson, Warfare in Ancient Greece: Arms and Armour from the Heroes of Homer to Alexander the Great:

     After the Celtic invasion of Greece and the subsequent removal of some Celts (the Galatians) to Asia Minor in the 270s, Greek light troops seem to have stopped using the pelta, and adopted instead the large, oval Celtic shield with a central spine.

2. (art, historical) A crescent-shaped design used in mosaics.
   • 1960, Saul S. Weinberg, The Southeast Building, the Twin Basilicas, the Mosaic House:

     A pattern of red and blue peltae on a white ground, arranged in groups of four with two peltae placed back to back and one at each end facing inward, forms the outer border on the east side of the mosaic.

   • 2006, Anna Maria Giusti, Pietre Dure: The Art of Semiprecious Stonework:

     Evidently it was a deliberate choice to select from the repertory of opus sectile, often extremely figurative, only those decorative motifs that were amenable to sixteenth-century architectural classicism, like the peltae on the Farnese tables, which were still used for the seventeenth-century pavement of the Confessio of St Peter's.

   • 2009, David S. Neal, Roman Mosaics of Britain: South-East Britain, page 424:

     Surrounding the square frame of round-tongued double guilloche is a broad white band with large lozenges (two on each side), outlined dark grey, with their acute angles terminating in voluted peltae with undulating spurs on their roundels.

3. (botany) A flat apothecium with no rim.
   • 1907, Gardeners Chronicle & New Horticulturist, page 3:

     The calyx is composed of five linear spreading sepals J inch long and attached to the sides of the inferior ovary are four bracts, two of which, the anterior and posterior, remain abortive, whilst the two lateral ones develop into large rounded flattened discs (peltae) attached at the centre.

4. (microbiology) A crescent-shaped sheet of microtubules that encircles the base of the flagella of a protozoan.
   • 1991, Michael A. Sleigh, Protozoa and Other Protists, page 116:

     A striated parabasal fibre is closely associated with a large parabasal golgi system; a dense pre-axostylar fibre connects to the axostyle, which is a curved sheet of microtubules that encloses the nucleus and extends to (or protrudes from) the posterior end of the cell; the same pre-axostylar fibre links to the pelta, which is a sheet of microtubules that curves around within a sort of collar that encloses the flagellar bases before turning back to meet the axostyle […]

   • 2010, W. de Souza, Structures and Organelles in Pathogenic Protists, page 16:

     The pelta is a crescent-shaped sheet also formed by microtubules, and it overlaps with the axostyle in the anterior region of the cell. The pelta supports the wall of the anterior region of the cell and the flagellar canal from which the flagella emerges.

   • 2012, Michael Melkonian, The Cytoskeleton of Flagellate and Ciliate Protists, page 86:

     The anterior semi-circular pelta surrounds the basal body area and the axostyle forms the longitudinal axis of the cell.

Related terms

• peltast
• peltate
• peltidium
• peltiform
• schizopeltid

 

Anagrams

• -petal, Patel, Plate, leapt, lepta, palet, petal, plate, platé, pleat, tepal

French

Noun

pelta f (plural peltas)

1. pelte

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin pelta, from Ancient Greek πέλτη (péltē).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛl.ta/
• Rhymes: -ɛlta
• Hyphenation: pèl‧ta

Noun

pelta f (plural pelte)

1. (historical) pelta (shield)

   Hypernym: scudo

Related terms

• peltato

Further reading

• pelta in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• talpe

Latin

A peltast carrying a pelte shield (pelta)

Etymology

From Ancient Greek πέλτη (péltē).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈpel.ta/, [ˈpɛɫ̪t̪ä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpel.ta/, [ˈpɛl̪t̪ä]

Noun

pelta f (genitive peltae); first declension

1. a small crescent-shaped shield of Thracian design.

Declension

First-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	pelta	peltae
genitive	peltae	peltārum
dative	peltae	peltīs
accusative	peltam	peltās
ablative	peltā	peltīs
vocative	pelta	peltae

Related terms

• peltasta, peltastes
• peltātus
• peltifer

References

• “pelta”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pelta”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pelta in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pelta in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pelta”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pelta”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpelta/ [ˈpel̪.t̪a]
• Rhymes: -elta
• Syllabification: pel‧ta

Noun

pelta f (plural peltas)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Further reading

• “pelta”, in Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy, 2023 November 28