breastplate

US/ˈbɹɛstˌpleɪt/

nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,439 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: breastplates

A breastplate is armour worn across the chest. A steel breastplate, buckle on the breastplate, a dented breastplate.

It is the single most useful piece of armour there is, since it covers the heart and the lungs, which is why it survived long after the rest was abandoned — cavalry wore one into the twentieth century. A good one was curved to turn a blow aside rather than stop it.

Definitions of breastplate

1nounbreastplateArmour worn across the chest.B2+
“The knight's breastplate saved him from the arrow.”

breastplate is armour.

Where it comes from

Breast plus plate, in Middle English, replacing an Old English word for the same thing.

Middle English
brestplate
English, today
breastplate

From Middle English brestplate, equivalent to breast + plate. Displaced brēostbeorg.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

breastplate in the wild

In the biblical account, the breastplate is termed the breastplate of judgment, because the Urim and Thummim were placed upon it.
Priestly breastplate
Faulds are pieces of plate armour worn below a breastplate to protect the waist and hips, which began to appear in Western Europe from about 1370.
Faulds (armour)
The faulds can either be riveted to the lower edge of the breastplate or made as a separate piece that the breastplate snugly overlaps.
Faulds (armour)
The breastplates were usually metallic crescent-shaped plaques worn around the neck.
Aboriginal breastplate
The breastplate is used on both English and Western saddles.
Breastplate (tack)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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