tonlet

English

Etymology

From Middle English tonlet, Old French tonnelet (French tonnelet (“high breeches; keg”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔn.lɛt/

Noun

tonlet (plural tonlets)

1. (historical) A long armoured skirt, designed for combat on foot.

   Coordinate terms: base, lamboys

   • 2014, Glenn Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold, Yale University Press, →ISBN:

     Accordingly, the Greenwich armoury hurriedly prepared a somewhat more conventional suit of foot combat armour made from existing pieces but incorporating newly made symmetrical pauldrons and a tonlet.

   • 2019, Pierre TerjanianAndrea Bayeret al., The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I, Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 96:

     On some the buttocks and groin are also fully encased in steel; while, on others, these same parts are protected by a tonlet, a deep steel skirt that widens downward to facilitate leg movement (see cat. 37).

2. (historical) One of the plates which make up such a skirt.
   • 1926, Hugh Chisholm, James Louis Garvin, The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature & General Information. 13th Ed., Being Volumes One to Twenty-eight of the Latest Standard Edition with the Three New Volumes Covering Recent Years and the Index Volume, page 588:

     Soon after this the six or eight "tonlets" grow fewer, being continued on the lower edge by the so-called tuilles, small plates strapped to the tonlets and swinging with the movement of the legs.

   • 2013, Wolfgang Bruhn, Max Tilke, A Pictorial History of Costume From Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century: With Over 1900 Illustrated Costumes, Including 1000 in Full Color, Courier Corporation, →ISBN:

     The steel tonlets are rigid, not overlapping and movable.

   • 2014, Desmond Seward, Richard III: England's Black Legend, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     His legs and thighs were similarly covered in plate, his loins by a mail apron over which was a short skirt of horizontal, overlapping plate 'tonlets'. His torso was protected by breast and back plates, the former reinforced […]

Alternative forms

• tonnelet