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Classical Mythology. the shield or breastplate of Zeus or Athena, bearing at its center the head of the Gorgon.
protection; support:
under the imperial aegis.
sponsorship; auspices:
a debate under the aegis of the League of Women Voters.
Contemporary Examples

Under the aegis of the World Trade Organization, companies could feel secure that they could sell their goods all over the globe.
The New Co-op Capitalism Noreena Hertz February 22, 2009

The biggest naval export program is the aegis fire control system.
Why the World’s Armies Don’t Want U.S. Tech Anymore Bill Sweetman July 13, 2014

“Greenwald did come here under the aegis of [Dotcom],” says John Armstrong, political columnist for The New Zealand Herald.
Greenwald, Assange, and Snowden Join Forces with Kim Dotcom in New Zealand Election Lennox Samuels September 16, 2014

Not every advice giver works under the aegis of an organization.
Sex, Suicide, and Homework: The Secret World of the Telephone Hotline Tim Teeman November 19, 2014

Tokyo also sent one of its aegis destroyers to the Sea of Japan on April 3.
Japan Prepares to Shoot North Korean Missiles Out of the Sky Angela Erika Kubo, Jake Adelstein April 9, 2014

Historical Examples

It was, too, something of a paradox that Byron should be eager to shelter himself under the aegis of Charles Lamb.
The Works of Lord Byron Lord Byron

Will she refuse to protect with her aegis the most humble of her adorers?
Memoirs of the Comtesse du Barry Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

So now he felt secure, under the aegis of the Press, and the wing of the “Gosshawk.”
Put Yourself in His Place Charles Reade

She is to have her piano and he is to write a book under her aegis.
Tante Anne Douglas Sedgwick

She stands erect in the centre of the pediment, fully armed and wearing her aegis.
A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, Volume I (of 2) A. H. Smith

noun
sponsorship or protection; auspices (esp in the phrase under the aegis of)
(Greek myth) the shield of Zeus, often represented in art as a goatskin
n.

“protection,” 1793, from Latin aegis, from Greek Aigis, the name of the shield of Zeus, said by Herodotus to be related to aix (genitive aigos) “goat,” from PIE *aig- “goat” (cf. Sanskrit ajah, Lithuanian ozys “he-goat”), as the shield was of goatskin. Athene’s aigis was a short goat-skin cloak, covered with scales, set with a gorgon’s head, and fringed with snakes. The exact use and purpose of it is not now clear.

The goatskin would be worn with the two forelegs tied in front of the wearer’s breast, or possibly with the head passed through an opening made at the neck, by the removal of the animal’s head. [F. Warre Cornish, ed., “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,” London, 1898]

operating system
A Unix variant that was used on Apollo workstations before Apollo was bought by Hewlett Packard. AEGIS has some advantages over standard BSD or System V Unix. It includes faster file access and a richer command set; there are commands to find out which process is running on a particular node, which process is locking a particular file, etc.
(1997-02-25)
programming, tool
A CASE tool for project change management written by Peter Miller, with minor contributions by a few others. Aegis is licensed using the GNU GPL but is not a GNU project.
Aegis Home (http://aegis.sourceforge.net/).
(2005-03-24)
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