Perhaps derived from a goatskin shield used in primitive times, it symbolized the storm cloud of the weather god. Powell summarizes the consensus on the artifact as follows: 'The aegis, 'goat skin,' was an emblem of Zeus's power, a magical object that inspired abject terror in all who beheld it. According to Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, the Aegis is Zeus' breastplate, and was 'awful to behold.' The Attic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been serpents in their representations of the ægis. The ægis ( Greek Αιγίς), already attested in the Iliad, is the shield or buckler of Zeus, which according to Homer was fashioned for him by Hephaestus, furnished with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion (the Gorgon Medusa's head) in the central boss. It is also noted that since the Greek word aegis contains the double-meaning of 'stormy' and 'goatish' that this accounts for the close connection between the goat and storms in myth. The original meaning may have been #1, and Ζευς 'Αιγιοχος = 'Zeus who holds the aegis' may have originally meant 'Sky/Heaven, who holds the storm.' The transition to the meaning 'shield' may have emerged as a folk-etymology among a people familiar with draping an animal skin over the left arm as a shield.

'goatskin coat,' from treating the word as 'something grammatically feminine pertaining to goat (Greek αιξ (stem αιγ-)).'.

'violent windstorm,' from the verb 'αïσσω (stem 'αïγ-) = 'I rush or move violently.'.

Likewise, scholars of religion and classicists have also used it to describe similar artifacts in other mythological traditions, where the Greek word aegis is often applied by extension. Regardless of its origins, the term 'ægis' has entered the English language as a symbolic means of describing the protection or patronage of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source.

Aegis key