empanoply

English

WOTD – 2 May 2020

Etymology

An empanoplied knight on horseback at the Jarmark Świętojański (Saint John’s Fair) in Kraków, Poland, in 2014.

From em- (prefix meaning ‘on, onto; covered’) +‎ panoply (“complete set of armour”);^[1] panoply is derived from Ancient Greek πᾰνοπλῐ́ᾱ (panoplíā, “suit of armour”), from πάνοπλος (pánoplos, “in full armour”) (from παν- (pan-, prefix meaning ‘all, every’) + ὅπλον (hóplon, “armour; arms, weapons”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpænəpli/, /ɛm-/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Hyphenation: em‧pa‧no‧ply

Verb

empanoply (third-person singular simple present empanoplies, present participle empanoplying, simple past and past participle empanoplied)

(transitive, British, military, historical, also figuratively) To dress in a full suit of armour; to panoply.
- 1784, William R[obert] Spencer, “Chorus from the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Written at Harrow School, in the Year 1784.”, in Poems by the Late Hon. William R. Spencer; […], new edition, London: James Cochrane and Co., […], published 1835, →OCLC, strophe III, page 139:
  I see, I see, empanoply'd in arms, / (Rapt with prophetic fire, sage Chiron cried), / O'er Phrygian plains wide hurling war's alarms, / Thy son, O Thetis, rise, his country's pride.
- 1876, “Night the Sixth. [Hadramaut.]”, in The Echo Club, and Other Literary Diversions, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 126:
  The grand conglomerate hills of Araby, / That stand empanoplied in utmost thought, / With dazzling ramparts front the Indian sea, / Down there in Hadramaut.
- 1886 May, Robert Brown, Jun., “To Miss Mildred Hope Courtney McDougall”, in A Trilogy of the Life-to-come and Other Poems, London: David Nutt, […], published 1887, →OCLC, page 92:
  High hope / Empanoplies the soul. Bright faith / Meets and o'ercomes the victor death, / And trusts the future's grander scope.
- 1889, Bret Harte, “A Secret of Telegraph Hill”, in The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, chapter II, page 171:
  It didn't appear to Herbert, however, that Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy over the occurrence, and she almost instantly retired with her daughter into the sitting-room, linking her arm in Cherry's, and, as it were, empanoplying her with own invulnerable shawl.
- 1901, Henry Murger [i.e., Henri Murger], “Floods of Pactolus”, in Ellen Marriage, John Selwyn, transl., The Latin Quarter: (“Scènes de la Vie de Bohème”), New York, N.Y.: Doubleday Page and Company, →OCLC, page 101:
  Do not interrupt; a truce to your raillery! It will fall blunted, besides, on the cuirass of an invulnerable will, in which henceforth I am empanoplied.
- 1912, Thomas Burke, “Paddington”, in Pavements and Pastures: A Book of Songs, London: Printed by the London and Norwich Press, →OCLC; republished in London Lamps: A Book of Songs, New York, N.Y.: Robert M[edill] McBride & Co.; London: Grant Richards, 1919, →OCLC, page 15:
  Oh, lovely are her [Paddington Station's] lean lines, and lovely her poise, / Empanoplying the long, dim frenzy of noise.
- 1928, Rafael Sabatini, “The Holy Office”, in The Hounds of God: A Romance, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 222:
  He was marvelling anew, no doubt, as he was presently to express it to the tribunal, that Satan should be permitted so admirably and deceptively to empanoply his servants.

Derived terms

empanoplied (adjective)

Related terms

Translations

to dress in a full suit of armour

Italian: corazzarsi

References

^ “empanoply, v.” under “em-, prefix”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1891.