• (America) IPA: /kəˈdu.si.əs/, /kəˈdjuː.si.əs/

caduceus (plural caducei)

1. The official wand carried by a herald in ancient Greece and Rome, specifically the one carried in mythology by Hermes, the messenger of the gods, usually represented with two snakes twined around it.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938 ↗, book II, canto XII:

     Caduceus the rod of Mercury, / With which he wonts the Stygian realmes inuade {{...}

2. A symbol (☤) representing a staff with two snakes wrapped around it, used to indicate merchants and messengers. It is also sometimes incorrectly used as a symbol of medicine.

• French: caducée