Word of the day: paladin
I have just come across this word in a book I have started to read called “Deep Time” by David Darling. The word means ‘heroic champion’. In the case of the book, the unlikely paladin is a sub-atomic particle, a proton.
The origin of the word is the Italian word paladino which comes from the Late Latin word palatines meaning “palace officer”. It is derived from the “Auxilia Palatina” who were the royal guards of the later Roman Empire who were named after the Palatine hill in Rome, Italy