Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A horse soldier in European armies whose equipment included the cuirass.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A mounted soldier armed with the cuirass. The cavalry of the time of the English civil wars was commonly so armed. The word was introduced in the seventeenth century to replace pistolier (which see). In modern European armies there are generally one or two regiments of cuirassiers. See
cuirass .
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A soldier armed with a cuirass; especially, a soldier of the heaviest cavalry, wearing a cuirass only when in full dress.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a cavalryman equipped with a cuirass
Etymologies
- French, from cuirasse, cuirass, from Old French, curasse; see cuirass.
Examples
“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.”
“The results of an evening's worth of figure basing: Elite Miniatures French cuirassiers, dragoons and, oh, one Minden SYW Austrian cuirassier in the front row on the left.”
“The French gained a slight advantage in the ensuing melees, forcing a couple more squadrons of cuirassier and hussars off the field.”
“GMB does not have Alt Modena yet, but does have 12 other cuirassier flags, so I'm glad to see Vaubanner has a good one.”
“Frank Hammond informed me that his Austrian and Prussian cuirassier castings are on the horizon, so the temptation is large to delay painting any more Hinchcliffes until I have a chance to tackle the Minden cuirassier figures.”
“By my count, the Prussian had only committed 5 of their 12 battalions to the battle so far, and on their right wing, their powerful cuirassier brigade seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the cavalry fight and they still had the Jung Krakow dragoons and the Prinz von Preussen CR2 cuirassiers around Sagschutz.”
“Every other Austrian cuirassier regiment had red facings.”
“As you may recall, I painted the first squadron of the Alt Modena cuirassier regiment earlier in the month.”
“A single squadron of French lancers won a melee against a larger and heavier Russian cuirassier squadron, forcing to to flee, but more importantly, pinning the two cuirassier squadrons that were stacked up behind it.”
“Two other cuirassier regiments can be seen debouching from the valley on the right of the picture.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cuirassier’.
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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
cuirassier, katyusha, AK-47, arquebus, phalanx, cohort, fleur-de-lis, union jack, agrégé, samurai, lord, slavophile and 125 more...
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Which see
A list of words with definitions containing the phrase "which see."
moteur, fancy, grass, frog, Art, illusion, battleship, duck, beaver, Seder, clam, zythiaceæ and 111 more...
chained_bear "'... But now the French cuirassiers and Imperial Guard cavalry were sent forward...'"
--Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen, 15–16 Mar 27, 2008