cuirass

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“
He was clad in helmet and cuirass, and armed with sword and poniard.

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Definitions (10)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. noun A piece of armor for protecting the breast and back.
  2. noun The breastplate alone.
  3. noun A defense or protection: "A carefully primped irony, that cuirass of art in the early Eighties, is necessary—a distance so affected as to constitute a hopeless impediment to feeling” (Robert Hughes).
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Examples (50)

  • Commines and his fellows helped the duke into his cuirass, and stood by his person, while the king's bodyguard of Scottish archers “proved themselves good fellows, who never budged from their master's feet and shot arrow upon arrow out into the darkness, wounding more Burgundians than Liegeois.” The first to fall was Charles's own host, the guide of the marauders to his own cottage door. —  Charles the Bold
  • The helmet, cuirass, and shield are all Hephaestus' work, totally unbreakable. —  F ;SF; - vol 091 issue 01 - July 1996
  • Give me the cuirass--so: my baldric; now My sword: I had forgot the helm--where is it That's well--no, 'tis too heavy; you mistake, too It was not this I meant, but that which bears 130 A diadem around it Sfe. —  The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 5 Poetry
  • A cuirassier is a cavalryman whose body is protected by a cuirass, a piece of defensive armor, covering the body from neck to girdle, and combining a breastplate and a back piece. —  Short Stories of Various Types
  • Now look to the warriors of modern times; you see the spear, the javelin, the shield, and the cuirass are changed for the musket and the light artillery. —  Consolations in Travel or, the Last Days of a Philosopher
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English curas, from Old French curasse, probably alteration (influenced by Old French cuir, leather) of Old Provençal coirassa, from Late Latin coriācea (vestis), leather (garment), feminine of coriāceus, from Latin corium, hide; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also cuirasse, curace; = Middle Dutch kuris, kurissc, Dutch kuras = Middle Low German kuresser, korisser, koritz = Low German kurrutz = Middle High German kürisz, German küris, kürass = Old Danish körritz, kyrritz, from Danish kyrads = Swedish kyrass (the modern Teutonic forms after F.), from French cuirasse, Old French cuirasse, cuirace = Provencal coirassa, cuirassa = Spanish coraza = Portuguese couraça, coiraça = Italian corazza, from Middle Latin coratia, coratium (also curatia, curacia more like Old French), a breastplate, orig. of leather, from Latin coriaccus, of leather, from corium (later Old French and F. cuir, leather), skin, hide, leather (for *scorium, cf. scortum, a hide, skin), = Greek χόριον (for *σκόριον), a membrane, = Old Bulgarian skora, a hide, = Lithuanian skurà, skin, hide, leather; prob. from the root of English shear, q. v. From L. also coriaccous (a doublet of cuirass), and quarry, game.
 

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/kwəˈræs/
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