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chamfron

UK/ˈt͡ʃam.fɹən/US/ˈtʃæm.fɹən/
nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

A chamfron is armour worn over a horse's face. A plated chamfron.

It protected the head and left the eyes covered by pierced cups. A chamfron was often the most decorated piece of a horse's armour, since it was the most seen.

Ingersoll · Public domain

Definitions of chamfron

  1. 1nounchamfronArmour worn over a horse's face.C2

    “The chamfron in the hall was engraved down the nose.”

chamfron is armour.

Where it comes from

Old French chanfrain, apparently champ, field, plus frein, the bit; it is the front plate of a full set of horse armour called a bard.

  1. Old French

    chanfrain

  2. English, today

    chamfron

Built from

  • champ · Old French — field, battlefield
  • frein · Old French — bit (between a horse's teeth)

From Old French chanfrain, presumably from champ (“field, battlefield”) + frein (“bit (between a horse's teeth)”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

chamfron in the wild

  • When it includes a disk or sheet of metal, often silver, it is known in English as a testera (Spanish loanword), chamfron (French loanword), or faceplate.

    Frentera

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.