What is "shield"

Shield \Shield\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Shielded; p. pr. & vb. n. Shielding.] [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 \Shield\, n. [OE. sheld, scheld, AS. scield, scild, sceld, scyld; akin to OS. scild, OFries. skeld, D. & G. schild, OHG. scilt, Icel. skj["o]ldr, Sw. sk["o]ld, Dan. skiold, Goth. skildus; of uncertain origin. Cf. Sheldrake.]

1. A broad piece of defensive armor, carried on the arm, -- formerly in general use in war, for the protection of the body. See Buckler.

   Now put your shields before your hearts and fight, With hearts more proof than shields.
   --Shak.

2. Anything which protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection. ``My council is my shield.''
   --Shak.

3. Figuratively, one who protects or defends.

   Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
   --Gen. xv. 1.

4. (Bot.) In lichens, a Hardened cup or disk surrounded by a rim and containing the fructification, or asci.

5. (Her.) The escutcheon or field on which are placed the bearings in coats of arms. Cf. Lozenge. See Illust. of Escutcheon.

6. (Mining & Tunneling) 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 ['e]cu, 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.

Old English scield, scild "shield; protector, defense," literally "board," from Proto-Germanic *skelduz (cognates: Old Norse skjöldr, Old Saxon skild, Middle Dutch scilt, Dutch schild, German Schild, Gothic skildus), from *skel- "divide, split, separate," from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut" (see scale (n.1)). Perhaps the notion is of a flat piece of wood made by splitting a log. Shield volcano (1911) translates German Schildvulkan (1910). Plate tectonics sense is from 1906, translating Suess (1888).\n

Old English gescildan, from the root of shield (n.). Related: Shielded; shielding. Compare German scilden.

Etymology 1 n. 1 Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection. 2 # A broad piece of defensive armor, carried on the arm, formerly in general use in war, for the protection of the body. Etymology 2

vb. 1 To protect, to defend. 2 (context electricity English) to protect from the influence of

1. n. a protective covering or structure

2. armor carried on the arm to intercept blows [syn: buckler]

1. v. protect, hide, or conceal from danger or harm [syn: screen]

2. hold back a thought or feeling about; "She is harboring a grudge against him" [syn: harbor, harbour]

1. redirect S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Shield is the name of several fictional patriotic superheroes created by MLJ (now known as Archie Comics). Appearing months before Captain America, the Shield has the distinction of being one of the first superheroes with a costume based upon United States patriotic iconography.

The name was used by MLJ/Archie for four characters. DC Comics' Impact line, which licensed the Archie properties, also used the name for several characters. In 2010, DC announced plans to integrate the Shield and other MLJ characters into the DC Universe, but in 2011 the rights to the characters reverted to Archie Comics. A fourth Shield was introduced in October 2015.

Shield, in comics, may refer to:

• S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel Comics organization
• Shield (Archie Comics), a number of characters who appeared in Archie and Impact Comics publications
• The Shield: Spotlight, a comic book adaptation of the TV series and published by IDW Publishing
• S.H.I.E.L.D. (comic book), a Marvel Comics ongoing series by Jonathan Hickman

A shield is generally a large area of exposed Precambrian crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically stable areas. In all cases, the age of these rocks is greater than 570 million years and sometimes dates back 2 to 3.5 billion years. They have been little affected by tectonic events following the end of the Precambrian, and are relatively flat regions where mountain building, faulting, and other tectonic processes are greatly diminished compared with the activity that occurs at the margins of the shields and the boundaries between tectonic plates.

The term shield, used to describe this type of geographic region, appears in the 1901 English translation of Eduard Suess's Face of Earth by H. B. C. Sollas, and comes from the shape "not unlike a flat shield" of the Canadian Shield which has an outline that "suggests the shape of the shields carried by soldiers in the days of hand-to-hand combat."

A shield is that part of the continental crust in which these usually Precambrian basement rocks crop out extensively at the surface. Shields themselves can be very complex: they consist of vast areas of granitic or granodioritic gneisses, usually of tonalitic composition, and they also contain belts of sedimentary rocks, often surrounded by low-grade volcano-sedimentary sequences, or greenstone belts. These rocks are frequently metamorphosed greenschist, amphibolite, and granulite facies.

Shields are normally the nucleus of continents and most are bordered by belts of folded Cambrian rocks. Because of their stability, erosion has flattened the topography of most of the continental shields; however, they commonly do have a very gently convex surface. They are also surrounded by a sediment-covered platform. By contrast, in a platform, the shield (more accurately referred to then as the crystalline "basement") is overlain by horizontal or subhorizontal sediment. Together, the shield, platform and basement are the parts that comprise the stable interior portion of the continental crust known as the craton.

The margins surrounding a shield generally constitute relatively mobile zones of intense tectonic or plate-like dynamic mechanisms. In these areas, complex sequences of mountain building ( orogeny) events have been documented over the past few hundred million years.

For example, the Ural Mountains, to the west of the Angaran Shield, are atop the mobile zone that separates the shield from the Baltic Shield. Similarly, the Himalayas are on the mobile boundary between the Angaran and Indian shields. Shield margins have been subject to geotectonic forces that have both destroyed and rebuilt the margins and the cratons that they partially comprise. In fact, the growth of continents has occurred as a result of the accretion of younger rocks that underwent deformations during series of mountain building processes. In a sense, these belts of folded rocks have been welded onto the borders of the preexisting shields, thus increasing the size of the proto-continents that they make up.

Continental shields occur on all continents, for example:

• The Canadian Shield forms the nucleus of North America and extends from Lake Superior on the south to the Arctic Islands on the north, and from western Canada eastward across to include most of Greenland.
• The Amazonian (Brazilian) Shield on the eastern bulge portion of South America. Bordering this is the Guiana Shield to the north, and the Platian Shield to the south.
• The Baltic (Fennoscandian) Shield is located in eastern Norway, Finland and Sweden.
• The African (Ethiopian) Shield is located in Africa.
• The Australian Shield occupies most of the western half of Australia.
• The Arabian-Nubian Shield on the western edge of Arabia.
• The Antarctic Shield.
• In Asia, an area in China and North Korea is sometimes referred to as the China-Korean Shield.
• The Angaran Shield, as it is sometimes called, is bounded by the Yenisey River on the west, the Lena River on the east, the Arctic Ocean on the north, and Lake Baikal on the south.
• The Indian Shield occupies two-thirds of the southern Indian peninsula.

A shield is a hand-held protective device meant to intercept attacks.

Shield may also refer to:

Shield is a surname. Notable people with this surname include:

• George Shield (1876–1935), British Labour Party politician
• Hugh Shield (1831–1903), English academic, barrister and Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1885
• Ian Shield (1914–2005), English cricketer
• Jeff Shield (1953–2009), Australian professional rugby league player
• Joe Shield, former quarterback in the National Football League
• Leroy Shield (1893–1962), American film score and radio composer
• Little Shield (died 1879), chieftain of the Northern Cheyenne from 1865–1879
• Mark Shield (born 1973), former Australian Football referee
• Pretty Shield (1856–1944), medicine woman of the Crow Nation
• William Shield (1748–1829), English composer, violinist and violist