Defn: A framework used to protect workmen in making an adit under ground, and capable of being pushed along as excavation progresses.
7. A spot resembling, or having the form of, a shield. "Bespotted as with shields of red and black." Spenser.
8. A coin, the old French crown, or écu, having on one side the figure of a shield. [Obs.] Chaucer. Shield fern (Bot.), any fern of the genus Aspidium, in which the fructifications are covered with shield-shaped indusia; — called also wood fern. See Illust. of Indusium.
SHIELD
Shield, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Shielded; p. pr. & vb. n. Shielding.]
Etym: [AS. scidan, scyldan. See Shield, n.]
1. To cover with, or as with, a shield; to cover from danger; to defend; to protect from assault or injury. Shouts of applause ran ringing through the field, To see the son the vanquished father shield. Dryden. A woman's shape doth shield thee. Shak.
2. To ward off; to keep off or out. They brought with them their usual weeds, fit to shield the cold to which they had been inured. Spenser.
3. To avert, as a misfortune; hence, as a supplicatory exclamation,
forbid! [Obs.]
God shield that it should so befall. Chaucer.
God shield I should disturb devotion! Shak.
SHIELD-BEARER
Shield"-bear`er, n.
1. One who, or that which, carries a shield.
2. (Zoöl.)