aventail

English

A Turkish helmet with an aventail.

Alternative forms

• aventaile

Etymology

From Middle English aventayle, from Old French esventail (“air-hole”), from esventer (Modern French éventer), from Latin ex (“out”) + ventus (“wind”). Related to ventail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈævənteɪl/

Noun

aventail (plural aventails)

1. A curtain or flap of chainmail, fastened to a helmet, or to a coif (hood) of mail, covering the lower face, neck, and shoulders.

   Synonyms: camail, ventail (“piece of chainmail”)

   • 1995, William W. Kibler, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 126:

     […] the hood was increasingly replaced with a mail curtain (the camail or aventail) suspended from the outside of the bascinet, and the bascinet thus augmented gradually replaced the clumsy great helm as the principal defense […]

2. Synonym of ventail (“movable (solid plate) front to a helmet”).

Translations

adjustable mail protecting the neck

• Catalan: collar (ca) m
• German: Helmbrünne f
• Italian: camaglio m
• Portuguese: camal (pt) m

References

• “aventail”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “aventail”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes I (A–C), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• alvanite, valentia, vanalite