plastron
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: plastrón
Etymology
Borrowed from French plastron, from Italian piastrone, augmentive of piastra (“breastplate”), from Latin emplastrum (“plaster”), from Ancient Greek ἔμπλαστρον (émplastron), from ἔμπλαστος (émplastos, “daubed, plastered”), from ἔμπλασσειν (émplassein, “to mould, form”).
Pronunciation
Noun
plastron (plural plastrons)
- The nearly flat part of the shell structure of a tortoise or other animal, similar in composition to the carapace.
- 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter 28, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, pages 208–209:
- The great tortoise that in myth is said to support the world and is thus an embodiment of the galaxy, without whose swirling order we would be a lonely wanderer in space, is supposed to have revealed in ancient times the Universal Rule, since lost, by which one might always be sure of acting rightly. Its carapace represented the bowl of heaven, its plastron the plains of all the worlds.
- (fencing) A half-jacket worn under the jacket for padding or for safety.
- A man's shirt-bosom.
- An ornamental front panel on a woman's bodice.
- 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate, published 2006, page 784:
- I bought here a wedding dress perhaps twenty or thirty years old [...] a sequin plastron to be worn over the womb as a feminine equivalent to a cod-piece, and a gauze veil embroidered in purple and gold.
- A breastplate.
- 1831, George Payne Rainsford James, Philip Augustus, Or, The Brothers in Arms, page 122:
- "Why, compared to what thou wast, Hugo, thou art as a deerskin coat to a steel plastron.-- Art thou not in love, man? Answer me!" "Something like, I fear me, beau sire,” replied the squire.
- 1964, Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator, New York: T.Y. Crowell Company:
- He therefore persuaded the Casa de Antillas to supply him with a hundred steel plastrons or corselets, with armlets and shoulder plates, and a hundred morions, or pikemen's helmets. This heavy armor was suitable […]
- A film of air trapped by specialized hairs against the body of an aquatic insect, and which acts as an external gill.
- The plastron of a diving beetle is not directly a source of oxygen, but acts as a gill, acquiring oxygen from the surrounding water.
- 2013, Jill Lancaster, Barbara J. Downes, Aquatic Entomology, page 45:
- Total independence of atmospheric air is possible only if insects have a permanent gas store or incompressible gas gill, called a plastron. Unlike compressible gas stores, the volume of a plastron remains constant and it is incompressible.
- 2013, Jon F. Harrison, Lutz T. Wasserthal (revisions & updates), 17: Gaseous Exchange, R. F. Chapman, Stephen J. Simpson (editor), Angela E. Douglas (editor), The Insects: Structure and Function, 5th Edition, page 535,
- The plastrons of other insects are generally less efficient than that of Aphelocheirus as they have a less dense hair pile from which the air is more readily displaced.
Derived terms
Translations
part of the shell structure of a tortoise
film of air trapped by specialized hairs against the body of an aquatic insect
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
plastron n (plural plastrons)
- plastron (lower part of a turtle/tortoise shell) [from 19th c.]
- plastron, breastplate, piece of armour covering the chest [from 17th c.]
Noun
plastron
- accusative of plastro
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
plastron m (plural plastrons)
- breastplate (piece of armour)
- (fencing) plastron
- chest pad; chest protection; chestguard
- (zoology) plastron (part of a turtle's shell)
- shirt front; the front of a shirt
- plastron (ornamental front part of a bodice)
- (zoology) breast (front part of certain birds)
Derived terms
Descendants
Further reading
- “plastron”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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