the.com/armor
the gorgeous confession that something soft and breakable lives underneath
means protective covering—metal, plate, plating, or metaphorical—worn or built to shield something vulnerable from harm
from From Latin armatura, 'equipment, armor,' built on arma, 'weapons, tools'—the same root that gives us army, armament, and arm itself. It traveled through Old French armure before settling into English in the medieval centuries when knights literally clad themselves in steel. Notice the kinship: the word for weapons and the word for the shell against them share one root, as if the language already knew that attack and defense are the same impulse wearing different faces.
- weight problem
- Full plate weighed 50 pounds, spread expertly across the body
- could move
- Knights in armor could run, climb, and do cartwheels
- gun killer
- Firearms made it obsolete, not swords or axes
- bulletproof tested
- Best plate was dented by a gun to prove it
- animal version
- Armadillo means little armored one in Spanish
samurai o-yoroi armor — japanese plate armor worn by samurai class from 12th-16th centuries, featuring layered silk and iron construction
maximilian armor — fluted steel armor style from 1485-1547 holy roman empire, named after emperor maximilian i