The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cuirass \Cui*rass"\ (kw[-e]*r[.a]s", or kw[=e]"r[a^]s; 277), n.; pl. Cuirasses(-[e^]z). [F.cuirasse, orig., a breastplate of leather, for OF. cuir['e]e, cuirie influenced by It. corazza, or Sp. coraza, fr. an assumed LL. coriacea, fr. L. coriaceus, adj., of leather, fr. corium leather, hide; akin to Gr. cho`rion intestinal membrane, OSlav. skora hide, Lith. skura hide, leather. Cf. Coriaceous.]
A piece of defensive armor, covering the body from the neck to the girdle.
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The breastplate taken by itself.
Note: The cuirass covered the body before and behind. It consisted of two parts, a breast- and backpiece of iron fastened together by means of straps and buckles or other like contrivances. It was originally, as the name imports, made of leather, but afterward of metal.
--Grose.
(Zo["o]l) An armor of bony plates, somewhat resembling a cuirass.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of cuirass English)
Usage examples of "cuirasses".
Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the substance or the appearance of gold.
The detachment proceeded for a mile through the city streets to an imposing building, before the entrance to which there was stationed a military guard whose elaborate cuirasses, helmets, and crests suggested that they might be a part of a select military organization.
Waving crests surmounted their burnished helmets, the metal of two hundred cuirasses, pikes, and shields shot back the sunlight that filtered through the trees beneath which they marched.
They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses of beaten iron, with horse-pistols in their holsters, and long sabre-swords.
One of their cuirasses, pierced on the shoulder by a ball from a biscayan, is in the collection of the Waterloo Museum.
The furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing.
They wore casques without plumes, and cuirasses of wrought iron, with horse pistols in their holsters, and long sabre-swords.
They heard the increasing sound of three thousand horses, the alternate and measured striking of their hoofs at full trot, the rattling of the cuirasses, the clicking of the sabres, and a sort of fierce roar of the coming host.
One of their cuirasses, with a hole in the left shoulder-plate made by a musket ball, is in the collection of the Waterloo Museum.
The furious onslaughts of these great squadrons with iron cuirasses and steel breastplates had ground up the infantry.
But the axe helves were too long to use in a mob like this, and the axemen's cuirasses of flexible cloth wouldn't even slow down the point of a Roman sword.
Froggie guessed the squad sounded like a drove of cattle—hobnails, shields clanking against cuirasses, and every couple of strides a man tripping on a root and swearing like a, well, a trooper.
Froggie guessed the squad sounded like a drove of cattle—hobnails, shields clanking against cuirasses, and every couple of strides a man tripping on a root and swearing like a, well, a trooper.
They had simple bronze helmets and cuirasses of stiffened linen, already soaked with their sweat.
They wore bronze helmets and cuirasses of stiffened linen that could turn a sword slash or even an arrow sent from a distance.