Etymologically
Log in

palladium

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the English word palladium

Pronunciation

  • /pəˈleɪdi.əm/[1]

palladium1 image of Pallas; safeguard

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1385 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Borrowed from
Old French palladion via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek Παλλάς

Etymology

The image of Pallas is inherited from Middle English Palladioun,[2][3] borrowed from Old French palladion and directly borrowed from Latin Palladium,[4][2][5][3] from Ancient Greek Παλλάδιον (Palládion),[4][6][7] the noun use of the neuter of a Greek adjective meaning "of Pallas",[7][8][5] from Παλλάς (Pallás), genitive Παλλάδος (Palládos), an epithet of the goddess Athena.[7][4][9] The OED takes -ιον (-ion) as a diminutive suffix,[4] as does Klein.[6] The Old French word is recorded about 1165, earlier as pallade, and the French sense of a thing on which a nation's safety depends from 1562.[4] The modern spelling follows the Latin, recorded from 1585.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The image of Pallas Athena in the citadel of Troy, on which the city's safety was believed to depend: about 1385, as Palladion in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,[7][10] and before 1393 in Gower's Confessio Amantis.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin name was used of a Trojan statue of Pallas said to have been stolen by Odysseus and later brought to Rome.[4] Since the safety of Troy was thought to depend on the image,[5][9] the word was used from 1600, in Philemon Holland's translation of Livy, for anything on which the safety of a nation, institution or privilege depends: a safeguard.[4][7] Skeat glossed it "a safeguard of liberty".[11]

Timeline

  • c. 1385 – the image of Pallas at Troy, as Palladion in Chaucer.[7] The OED's first record is in Gower, before 1393.[4]
  • 1585 – the Latin spelling Palladium.[7]
  • 1600 – a safeguard, a source of protection.[4][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (often capitalized) In classical mythology, the statue of Pallas Athena in the citadel of Troy, on which the city's safety was believed to depend.[12][4][13]
  2. Anything regarded as an effective protection; a safeguard: A free press is the palladium of liberty.[8][4]

palladium2 chemical element

Confidence
Established
Formation
Coinage
First attested
1803 Chenevix, Philosophical Transactions
Borrowed from
Latin palladium
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek Παλλάς

Etymology

The element is borrowed from New Latin palladium,[8][7][9][6] coined in 1803 by its discoverer, the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston,[4][7][5][6] from Pallas, the name of an asteroid discovered in 1802,[4][7][8] with the suffix -ium.[4][7][8] The OED notes that the stem Pallad- was taken from Greek Παλλαδ- (Pallad-).[4] The asteroid had been named after the goddess Pallas Athena, from Ancient Greek Παλλάς (Pallás).[7][5][4] Barnhart and the OED compare cerium, named in the same way after an asteroid.[7][4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The metal: 1803, in Richard Chenevix's paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.[4][8][7] Wollaston first announced it that April in anonymous handbills offering "palladium, or new silver" for sale in London.[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its single chemical sense: a hard, silvery metal of the platinum group, used in alloys and as a catalyst.[4][12][8]

Timeline

Meanings

Noun

  1. A soft, silvery-white metallic chemical element of the platinum group, symbol Pd and atomic number 46, used as a catalyst and in alloys for jewellery and dentistry.[12][8][4]

Word family

  • palladous
  • palladic
  • Pallas
  • Palladian
  • cerium

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Palladium.” Etymologically, 1 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/palladium. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·