Also 6–8 armadillio, 7 -ilio, -ile, 7–8 -illa. [a. Sp. armadillo, dim. of armado one armed:—L. armātus, pa. pple. of armar:—L. armāre to ARM. The spellings -illio, -ilio, represented the Sp. pronunciation; armadile was perh. from Fr. As a 16th-c. word, the plural is historically in -oes, but -os is now usual.]
1. Name of several species of burrowing animals (order Edentata), peculiar to South America; specially distinguished by the bony armor in which their whole body is encased, and by the habit of rolling themselves, when captured, into an impregnable ball, sheltered by this armor.
1577. Frampton, Joyf. Newes, II. 73 b. He is called the Armadillo, that is to saie a beaste armed.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., V. xii. 555. The beast Armadillio is found in the Realme of Mexico.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Apol., 37. Tortoyses, Armadiles.
1764. Watson, Armadilla, in Phil. Trans., LIV. 57. Called by naturalists the American Armadilla.
1781. Smellie, Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1785), V. 362. The armadillos, instead of hair, are covered … with a solid crust.
1834. Sir C. Bell, Hand, 51. Ant-eaters, armadilloes and sloths have this bone [the clavicle].
1868. Wood, Homes without Hands, i. 42. All the Armadillos … are mighty burrowers.
2. transf. A genus of small terrestrial Crustacea (order Isopoda), allied to the wood-louse; so called after the preceding, because they have the power of rolling themselves into a ball, so as to expose nothing but the plates of the back.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 799.
1859. Wood, Com. Obj. Countr., iv. 65. Formerly the armadillo was used in medicine, being swallowed as a pill in its rolled up state.
