Crossword clues for vair
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vair \Vair\, n. [F. vair, from OF. vair, a., L. varius various,
variegated. See Various, and cf. Menivel.]
The skin of the squirrel, much used in the fourteenth century
as fur for garments, and frequently mentioned by writers of
that period in describing the costly dresses of kings,
nobles, and prelates. It is represented in heraldry by a
series of small shields placed close together, and
alternately white and blue.
--Fairholt.
No vair or ermine decked his garment.
--Sir W.
Scott.
Counter vair (Her.), a fur resembling vair, except in the arrangement of the patches or figures.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"squirrel fur," or some other kind of fur in use in the Middle Ages, c.1300, from Old French vair "two-toned squirrel fur; fur garments" (12c.), from Latin varium, masculine accusative singular of varius "parti-colored" (see vary). Gray or black above and white below.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context archaic English) A type of fur from a squirrel with a black back and white belly, much used on garments in the Middle Ages. 2 (context tincture English) An heraldic fur formed by a regular tessellation of blue and white bell shapes.
Wikipedia
The Vair is a river in Vosges in Lorraine in northeastern France. It rises in Dombrot-le-Sec and flows generally northwest to join the Meuse at Maxey-sur-Meuse.
Vair may refer to:
- Vair, a heraldic tincture
- Vair (river), a tributary of the Meuse in Lorraine, France
- Vair, Texas, a town in the United States
- Guillaume du Vair (1556–1621), French author and lawyer
- Steve Vair (1886–1959), Canadian professional ice hockey player
Usage examples of "vair".
Vair introduced as Pinard Tzarion, Inquisitor-General of the Army of Alketch.
Dancer was draped in bardings of snowy white wool emblazoned with the grey direwolf of House Stark, while Bran wore grey breeches and white doublet, his sleeves and collar trimmed with vair.
In silk and vair, golden chains, ostrich plumes, cordovan hose, slashed and puffed sleeves, curl-toed shoes, the English showed like peacocks in a hen yard.
Heralds have not omitted this order or imitation thereof, while they Symbollically adorn their Scuchions with Mascles, Fusils, and Saltyrs, and while they dispose the figures of Ermins, and vaired coats in this Quincuncial method.
And as folk will often go to the court, though they have no concern whatever there, it so befell that Maso del Saggio went thither one morning in quest of one of his friends, and there chancing to set eyes on this Messer Niccola, where he sate, deemed him a fowl of no common feather, and surveyed him from head to foot, observing that the vair which he wore on his head was all begrimed, that he carried an ink-horn at his girdle, that his gown was longer than his robe, and many another detail quite foreign to the appearance of a man of birth and breeding, of which that which he deemed most notable was a pair of breeches, which, as he saw (for the judge's outer garments being none too ample were .