plate mail

See also: platemail

English

Alternative forms

• platemail

Noun

plate mail (uncountable)

1. (academically obsolete, now fiction, fantasy) Brigandine.
   • 1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia; Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature:

     Of mail there are two forts, viz. chain and plate mail. Chain mail is formed by a number of iron rings, each ring having four others inserted into it; the whole exhibiting a kind of net-work, with circular meshes, every ring […]

   • 2010 November 21, Joseph Barresi, Gods of Arator Volume 1 the Gods of Life, midnightrise, →ISBN, page 71:

     Crusaders all wear light plate mail or a chain mail and plate mail mix.

   • 2011, Vic Hurley, Arrows Against Steel: The History of the Bow and how it Forever Changed Warfare, Cerberus Books, →ISBN, page 25:

     The first armor, flexible chain mail with gambesons (a quilted garment worn under the mail), was far more effective than the later plate mail. To be effective against arrows, plate mail had to be so heavy as to render its use […]

   • 2014 May 5, Eduard Wagner, Zoroslava Drobná, Jan Durdík, Medieval Costume, Armour and Weapons, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 30:

     […] however, his legs are completely covered by plate mail. This combination of chain and plate mail, similar to that which we noted already in the Wenceslas Bible, appears in a number of cases here […]