roundel

• roundle (archaic)

From Middle English roundel, rundel, rondel, from Old French rondel (“something round and flat”), a diminutive of rond (“round”). More at round.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹaʊn.dəl/

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roundel (plural roundels)

1. Anything having a round form; a round figure; a circle.

   the London Underground roundel

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 93:

     The Overground has been given a seat at the Underground table. It has the roundel, the Johnston typeface, and it is on the Tube map.

2. (music) A roundelay or rondelay.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], line 1:

     Come, now a roundel and a fairy song ... Fairies sing.

3. A small circular shield, sometimes not more than a foot in diameter, used by soldiers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 26:

     The roundel or rondache derived its name from its circular figure, it was made of oziers boards of light wood, sinews or ropes, covered with leather, plates of metal, or stuck full of nails in concentric circles or other figures.

4. (heraldry) A circular spot; a charge in the form of a small coloured circle.
5. (aviation) A circular insignia painted on an aircraft to identify its nationality or service.

   Synonym: cockade

6. A bastion of a circular form.
7. (India, obsolete) An umbrella.
   • 1773, Edward Ives, A Voyage from England to India, page 21:

     […] a Roundel-boy; whose business, is, to walk by his master, and defend him with his Roundel or Umbrella from the heat of the sun.

• lounder, roundle, ruled on