the.com/medal

means A piece of metal struck or cast to honor an achievement, event, or person, usually given as an award.

from From French médaille, from Italian medaglia, traced back to Vulgar Latin medialia or metallea — rooted in Latin metallum, 'metal.' One popular theory ties it instead to Latin medius, 'half,' suggesting an old half-denarius coin, but this is contested folk etymology; the metal-root path is the more widely accepted story.