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Coat of mail   /koʊt əv meɪl/   Listen
noun
Coat  n.  
1.
An outer garment fitting the upper part of the body; especially, such a garment worn by men. "Let each His adamantine coat gird well."
2.
A petticoat. (Obs.) "A child in coats."
3.
The habit or vesture of an order of men, indicating the order or office; cloth. "Men of his coat should be minding their prayers." "She was sought by spirits of richest coat."
4.
An external covering like a garment, as fur, skin, wool, husk, or bark; as, the horses coats were sleek. "Fruit of all kinds, in coat Rough or smooth rined, or bearded husk, or shell."
5.
A layer of any substance covering another; a cover; a tegument; as, the coats of the eye; the coats of an onion; a coat of tar or varnish.
6.
Same as Coat of arms. See below. "Hark, countrymen! either renew the fight, Or tear the lions out of England's coat."
7.
A coat card. See below. (Obs.) "Here's a trick of discarded cards of us! We were ranked with coats as long as old master lived."
Coat armor. See under Armor.
Coat of arms (Her.), a translation of the French cotte d'armes, a garment of light material worn over the armor in the 15th and 16th centuries. This was often charged with the heraldic bearings of the wearer. Hence, an heraldic achievement; the bearings of any person, taken together.
Coat card, a card bearing a coated figure; the king, queen, or knave of playing cards. "'I am a coat card indeed.' 'Then thou must needs be a knave, for thou art neither king nor queen.'"
Coat link, a pair of buttons or studs joined by a link, to hold together the lappels of a double-breasted coat; or a button with a loop for a single-breasted coat.
Coat of mail, a defensive garment of chain mail. See Chain mail, under Chain.
Mast coat (Naut.), a piece of canvas nailed around a mast, where it passes through the deck, to prevent water from getting below.
Sail coat (Naut.), a canvas cover laced over furled sails, and the like, to keep them dry and clean.


Mail  n.  
1.
A flexible fabric made of metal rings interlinked. It was used especially for defensive armor.
Chain mail, Coat of mail. See under Chain, and Coat.
2.
Hence generally, armor, or any defensive covering.
3.
(Naut.) A contrivance of interlinked rings, for rubbing off the loose hemp on lines and white cordage.
4.
(Zool.) Any hard protective covering of an animal, as the scales and plates of reptiles, shell of a lobster, etc. "We... strip the lobster of his scarlet mail."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Coat of mail" Quotes from Famous Books



... and as if he distrusted what he had done before, he hurled his spear against Menoetes, one of the Lycian multitude,[15] who {was} standing opposite, and he tore asunder both his coat of mail, and his breast beneath it. He beating the solid earth with his dying head, he drew the same weapon from out of the reeking wound, and said, "This is the hand, this the lance, with which I conquered but now. The same will I use against him; in his {case}, I pray that the event ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... shadow, but those strange eyes of his gleamed oddly, with the sort of fitful shining that comes from a coat of mail in an uncertain light. They did not flinch from Jake's straight regard, neither did ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... features lent an added touch of distinction. One was reminded of those dangerously mild and rather sad faces of Spanish soldiers which look at one from Velasquez's canvases. This man might wear a ruff and a velvet doublet, or, better yet, a coat of mail, she reflected, instead of the well-cut but rather worn gray tweeds ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... ship, as he can rest in drawing a piece of drapery, we might sometimes see vessels introduced by the noblest workmen, and treated by them with as much delight as they would show in scattering luster over an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly discernible; liable to all kinds of strange accidental variety in position and movement, yet in each position subject to imperative laws ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Thomas are part of that strange rigidity of the thirteenth century which is one of the startling paradoxes of the ages of faith. It is surely a consolation that these ages of a faith which moved mountains, or at least essayed to remove the Turk, were minded to express their beliefs in the coat of mail of human reason! The giants of those days, who in the sphere of literature were rediscovering verse and inventing rhyme, and who in every sphere of knowledge were bringing forth the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, were ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas


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