Obs. Forms: 5 bregaunter, -ander, breggandire, brigaunder, 5–6 brygander, -yr, brigander, 6 -inder, bregandier. [f. BRIGAND, on some obscure analogy: there is no such form in French.]

1

  1.  Body-armor for foot-soldiers; = BRIGANDINE 1.

2

1420.  Test. Ebor. (1836), I. 397. Unum par de bregaunters, cum tota reliqua armatura mea.

3

1450.  John Paston, Petit., in Lett., I. 106. A thowsand persones … arrayd in maner of werre, with curesse, brigaunders, jakks, salettes, gleyfes, bowes, [etc.].

4

1497.  Will of Sympson (Somerset Ho.). Pair briganders, paire leg harneys, a paire of gussettes.

5

1543.  Grafton, Contn. Harding, 497. The Duke of Buckyngham stoode harnessed in olde euell fauoured bryganders.

6

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xviii. (1632), 915. Harnessed in olde rusty briganders.

7

  2.  A soldier wearing a brigander.

8

1525.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. clix. [clv.] 438. The aragonoys shulde serue hym … with ii. hundred speares at their coste and charge, and a thousande crosbowes, and a thousande bregandiers.

9