cuirass

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English curas,^[2][3][4] also curase,^[5] borrowed from Middle French curasse, a variant of cuirasse,^[2][4] which the OED records in French from 1418;^[6] Etymonline and the Oxford Dictionary of English cite it as Old French cuirace.^[5][7][8] The French spelling later replaced the English one.^[4] The French word goes back to Late Latin coriācea (“(garment) of leather”), in full coriācea vestis,^[9][5] the feminine of Latin coriāceus (“made of leather”),^[2][10] from corium (“leather, hide”).^[6][11][12] Ayto starts from Vulgar Latin *coriācia,^[12] and the Medieval Latin corācium is, according to the OED, taken from the modern languages.^[6]

On the step into French, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford see an alteration under the influence of Old French cuir (“leather”) of a Romance noun, the former naming Old Occitan coirassa;^[3][8] the OED and Klein derive it from cuir, the OED adding that this followed the Provençal, Italian and Spanish words.^[6][13] Hoad and Partridge allow a borrowing from Italian corazza,^[14][15] while Barnhart rejects the traditional Italian source because the French word is too old.^[11][9] Compare Spanish coraza and Portuguese couraça.^[5][13]

Further back, Ayto and the American Heritage Dictionary trace the Latin noun to Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“to cut”), the source of shear,^[12][3] and Barnhart gives *ker- and compares Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “to cut off”);^[9] the notion is of removing the hide with a knife.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of body armour, originally of leather: 1464, in an account printed in Manners and Household Expenses of England.^[6][11] Etymonline dates it to the mid-15th century,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1425–75.^[4]

Semantic evolution

A cuirass was literally a leather garment,^[12][6] and the word stayed when the armour came to be a breastplate and backplate buckled together, reaching to the waist.^[6][8] The original Old French name was cuiriée, whence quirre, a leather armour.^[6][16] In the 16th century a frequent English form was curats, apparently under the influence of Italian curazza; since its final -s looked plural, a singular curat was made from it, common from 1560 to 1650.^[6][17] The stress then fell on the first syllable, and moved to the second under French influence: Bailey has it there in 1730.^[6] Johnson (1755) glossed the word simply as a breastplate, with a line of Dryden.^[18] From armour it spread to hard coverings: an animal's buckler or shell from 1605,^[6] the armour plating of ships from 1860,^[6] and a close-fitting woman's bodice from 1883.^[6][8] A respirator enclosing the trunk has had the name since 1939.^[6][8] The verb, to cover with or as if with a cuirass, followed in 1863.^[6]

Timeline

• 1464 – a piece of body armour.^[6][11]
• 1598 – in the plural, soldiers wearing cuirasses (now obsolete).^[6]
• 1605 – the hard protective covering of an animal.^[6]
• 1835 – the breastplate of the Jewish high priest.^[6]
• 1860 – the armour plating of a ship.^[6]
• 1863 – verb, to cover or protect with or as with a cuirass.^[6]
• 1883 – a close-fitting sleeveless bodice worn by women.^[6]
• 1939 – short for cuirass respirator.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of body armour, originally of leather, covering the chest and back, usually a breastplate and backplate joined together: The museum displays a dented steel cuirass from a cavalry regiment.^[10][2][6]
2. The breastplate of such a piece on its own.^[2][8]
3. A hard protective covering of an animal, of shell, bony plates or scales.^[10][2][6]
4. The protective armour plate of a ship or the like.^[10][2][6]
5. A tight, sleeveless woman's bodice of former fashion, often stiffened with embroidery or metal trim.^[8][6]
6. A respirator fitted around the body, leaving the limbs free.^[8][6]

Verb

1. To cover or equip with a cuirass, or as if with one.^[2][10][6]

Word family

• cuirassed
• cuirassier
• encuirassed

Related words

• cuirie
• corium
• coriaceous
• excoriate
• shear
• cortex

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
16. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.