pallium

plural pallia · plural palliums

1. historicalA large cloak worn by Greek philosophers and teachers.First known use 10th c.
2. ChristianityA woolen liturgical vestment resembling a collar and worn over the chasuble in the Western Christian liturgical tradition, conferred on archbishops by the Pope, equivalent to the Eastern Christian omophorion.First known use 11th c.

   Tut, tut, I have absolved thee: dost thou scorn me, / Because I had my Canterbury pallium / From one whom they dispoped?

   1877, Alfred Tennyson, Harold: A Drama, London: Henry S. King & Co., →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 76

   2 more examples

   Gregory sent Augustine a special liturgical stole, the pallium, a piece of official ecclesiastical dress borrowed from the garments worn by imperial officials.

   2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 339

   Wynfrith, an Anglo-Saxon monk later known as St Boniface, who was the first archbishop of Mainz and a key figure in the Empire's church history, was given cloth that had lain across St Peter's tomb as his pallium in 752.

   2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 23

3. biologyThe mantle of a mollusc.First known use 19th c.
4. anatomyThe cerebral cortex.First known use 19th c.
5. biologyA presumed gelatinous envelope of diatoms.
6. obsoleteclimatologyA sheet of cloud covering the whole sky, especially nimbostratus.First known use 19th c.
7. biologyThe membrane which stretches across the inner walls of the subgenital plate and covers the aedeagus of a grasshopper.