Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See gambeson.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A defensive garment formerly in use for the body, made of cloth stuffed and quilted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun historical A defensive garment made of stuffed and quilted cloth.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gambison, from Old French gambeson, gambaison, from gambais, wambais ("quilted jerkin"), from Medieval Latin wambāsium ("doublet, waistcoat"), from Frankish *wamba (“abdomen, belly”), from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“belly, womb”): compare Middle High German wambeis, German Wams ("waistcoat, doublet"), from Old High German wamba ("stomach"). More at womb.

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Examples

  • A little chilly perhaps, but the gambison is nice and warm.

    Charm XVIII nathreee 2010

  • A little chilly perhaps, but the gambison is nice and warm.

    Charm XVIII nathreee 2010

  • I have ordered that gambison I was so crazy about and now I'm fretting about what to do with my hair.

    requests - giving mood nathreee 2010

  • I have ordered that gambison I was so crazy about and now I'm fretting about what to do with my hair.

    I'm in a giving mood nathreee 2010

  • This time will see me with a sturdy gambison under the old, grey priestess robe and a fine new weapon to bash things with.

    Charm XVIII nathreee 2010

  • This time will see me with a sturdy gambison under the old, grey priestess robe and a fine new weapon to bash things with.

    Charm XVIII nathreee 2010

  • And I, with a helmet on my head and a gambison but half buckled upon my body, and my hands bare, was fighting with a full-armed Frenchman and was hard pressed.

    Via Crucis 1881

  • Then Buondelmonte thrust out straight and sure, in the Italian fashion, and once the mortal wound was in the face, and once in the throat, and many times men felt it in their breasts through mail and gambison and bone.

    Via Crucis 1881

  • The mail was of finest rings of steel sewn upon soft doeskin, fitted so closely that there was no room for gambison or jerkin; and though it might have stopped a broad arrow or turned the edge of a blade, a sharp dagger could have made a wound beneath it, and against a blow it afforded less protection than a woollen cloak.

    Via Crucis 1881

  • O Harry! nurse Joanna tells me that they do eat but frozen turnips and salted beef in his dreadful country, and that the queen-mother, Margaret, wears a gambison [R] and hauberk [S] like to a belted knight. "

    Historic Boys Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times Elbridge Streeter Brooks 1874

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