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surcoat

UK/ˈsɜːˌkəʊt/US/ˈsɜɹˌkoʊt/
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

Other forms: surcoats

A surcoat is a loose robe worn over armour. Wear a surcoat, an embroidered surcoat, a surcoat over mail.

It carried the arms that identified a knight, since armour hid everything else about him. A surcoat also kept the sun off metal, which matters far more than it sounds.

Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain

Definitions of surcoat

  1. 1nounsurcoatA loose robe worn over armour.C2

    “The surcoat carried the same arms as the shield.”

surcoat is a garment.

Where it comes from

Old French surcote is sur, over, plus cote, a coat.

  1. Old French

    surcote

  2. Middle English

    surcote

  3. English, today

    surcoat

Built from

  • sur · French — over
  • cote · Old French — coat, robe, tunic, overgarment

From Middle English surcote, from Old French surcote, formed with sur (“over”) and cote (“coat, robe, tunic, overgarment”), respelled based on coat.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

surcoat in the wild

  • A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe.

    Coat of arms

  • A surcoat or surcote is an outer garment that was commonly worn by soldiers in the Middle Ages.

    Surcoat

  • On the battlefield, the surcoat helped keep the sun off the soldier and their armor, reducing the risk of heat illness.

    Surcoat

  • White armour, or alwyte armour, was a form of plate armour worn in the Late Middle Ages characterized by full-body steel plate without a surcoat.

    White armour

  • Around 1420 the surcoat, or "coat of arms" as it was known in England, began to disappear, in favour of uncovered plate.

    White armour

1 / 2

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.

Related words

the cote family

cottage

surcoat — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others