panoply
/ˈpanəpli
/noun
1An extensive or impressive collection: a deliciously inventive panoply of insults...
- The proclaimed Jewish nature of the state is reinforced by a panoply of laws ranging from a ban on mixed marriages to over 90 per cent of the land and property in Israel being reserved for Jews.
- The resulting panoply of data has become the basis of an ambitious commercial service that IBM recently launched called WebFountain.
- Kota Kinabalu has a panoply of starred and budget hotels ranging from the ultra luxurious to non-star accommodation.
Synonyms
array, range, collection
1.1A splendid display: I leaned forward to take in the full panoply of tourist London...
- The truth is that she belonged to an almost unimaginable past, one that has gone for ever; it is also a country inhabited by those who wanted the full panoply of Victorian mourning for the grandmother they never knew.
- The smiths, resplendent in the full panoply of Tuareg costume, had organised a dance in a dusty street that backed onto the hotel kitchen.
- Alongside, on a watch face, time has stood still; beneath it, in a panoply of colour, things begin to disintegrate into abstraction.
Synonyms
trappings, regalia, apparatus;
splendour, spectacle, show, display;
ceremony, ritual
1.2 historical or literary A complete suit of armour.In most parts of Greece, the main armed force consisted of hoplites, heavy infantry, each armed with a single thrusting spear and sword, and protected by a panoply of bronze armour....
- As a weak or crippled body derives no advantage from a panoply of armour, which it will rather discard as being unable to bear it, so, in the same manner, a vigorous body causes affliction to a diseased soul by not being in conformity with its existing circumstances.
Derivatives
panoplied
/ adjective ...- A great discovery does not leap completely achieved from the brain of the scientist, as Minerva sprang, all panoplied, from the head of Jupiter.
- Panoplied in gaudy Technicolor and replete with beauteous slave girls and a princess, hard-riding villains and a handsome sword-swinging hero, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" is a Hollywood version of a tale told centuries ago by a lady anxious to keep her head.
Origin
Late 16th century (in the sense 'complete protection for spiritual warfare', often with biblical allusion to Eph. 6:11, 13): from French panoplie or modern Latin panoplia 'full armour', from Greek, from pan 'all' + hopla 'arms'.