noun

• (historical) A ribbon worn in the hair in ancient Greece.
  "Taenia and ivy leaves are added by hand. Figure wears a taenia horizontally over her brow and a spray of ivy in her hair."
• (architecture, Doric architecture) A band between the frieze and architrave in the Doric order.
  "2004, William Bell Dinsmoor, The Propylaia to the Athenian Acropolis, Volume 2: The Classical Building, page 165, The height of the taenia was likewise determined with regard to the total height of the epistyle, and again, although we should not expect a proportion of less than one-twelfth of the total height (as in the Parthenon), it is reduced to one-thirteenth, executed as 0.089-0.090 m."
• (anatomy) Any of several ribbon-like bands of tissue.
  "Each taenia traverses one of the following surfaces of the colon: the anterior surface, the posteroinferior surface, and the posterosuperior surface."
• (biology) Any species of the genus Taenia of tapeworms.
  "About an hour after the last dose, that is, in three hours after commencing the remedy, an entire tænia was voided alive, no other effect than a slight nausea having been experienced by the patient.[…]On plunging living tæniae either into the decoction, or into the mixture of the pomegranate bark and water, they writhe and manifest great suffering."