aventail
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
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 edit
Noun edit
aventail (plural aventails)
- A curtain or flap of chainmail, fastened to a helmet, or to a coif (hood) of mail, covering the lower face, neck, and shoulders.
- 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 […]
- Synonym of ventail (“movable (solid plate) front to a helmet”).
Translations edit
adjustable mail protecting the neck
References edit
- “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, volume I (A–C), revised edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.