Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A short mantle fastened at the shoulder, worn by men in ancient Greece.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In ancient Greek costume, a form of mantle which left both arms free, worn especially by equestrians, hunters, and travelers, and by soldiers.
  • noun A purple cope; one of the pontifical vestments.
  • noun 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.
  • noun A genus of bivalve mollusks: synonymous with

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

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

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

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

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

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

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, from Greek khlamus.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek χλαμύς.

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Examples

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

    Buried Cities, Complete Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae Jennie Hall 1898

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

    Buried Cities, Volume 3 Mycenae Jennie Hall 1898

  • 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 Giorgio Vasari 1542

  • 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

    Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

  • 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.

    Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

  • 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.

    Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

  • 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 de Brantigny........................ 2008

  • 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.

    Archive 2008-03-23 de Brantigny........................ 2008

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

    Les Miserables 2008

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

    Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions 2007

Comments

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  • "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

    April 8, 2012