[ad. L. armātūra armor (perh. through 15–16th c. Fr. armature), f. armāt- ppl. stem of armāre to ARM: see -URE. The same L. word coming down through OF. armeure, is now ARMOUR.]
1. Arms, armor, military accoutrement; esp. defensive armor.
1669. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, I. II. v. 65. Mars was the first who furnished armature.
1699. Phil. Trans., XXI. 165. Swords, Daggers, or the like sort of Armiture.
1830. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 340. Take for example the armature of the Infantry … Pay, clothing, food … and armature with the common musquet.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, II. 243. Massy armature of shields.
2. fig. esp. in Theol. lang. [Cf. Vulg. Eph. vi. 11 Induite armaturam Dei; Wyclif ‘armure,’ Tindale ‘armoure.’] (The earliest use in Eng.)
1542. Becon, Pathw. Prayer (1843), 144. Prayer is truly called a … heavenly armature.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor. (1756), 34. Not the armour of Achilles, but the Armature of St. Paul.
1865. Bushnell, Vicar. Sacr., III. iii. (1868), 269. That armature of strength upon his feeling that enables him to inflict pain without shrinking.
† 3. Armed troops. (So in Lat.) Obs.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XIV. xi. 26. Captaine of the Armature [Armaturarum Tribunus].
1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., I. 474. We mean no attacks either upon your battalion or light armature.
4. The art of protecting with armor, or with defensive materials.
1611. Guillim, Heraldrie, IV. viii. 207. For by Armature we vnderstand not onely those things which appertaine to Military profession, but also those defensiue Sciences of Masonry and Carpentry and Metall works.
1721. Bailey, Armature, Armour; also Skill in Arms.
5. transf. Protective or defensive covering of animals or plants; occas. apparatus of attack.
1662. More, Antid. Ath., II. viii. (1712), 64. His [a horse’s] Hoofs are made so fit for … that round armature of Iron.
1713. Derham, Phys.-Theol., IV. xii. 221. Some with Scales, some with Shells, and some with firm and stout Armature.
1816. Keith, Phys. Bot., II. 76. Armature … to defend the plant against the attack of animals.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. VII. iv. 353. Having its mouth provided with a corneous armature.
1874. Wood, Nat. Hist., 631. Destroying them with the terrible armature called the tooth-ribbon.
6. a. Magnetism. A piece of soft iron placed in contact with the poles of a magnet, which preserves and increases the magnetic power; or any arrangement that produces the same result. † b. Electr. The coatings of tinfoil on the inside and outside of a Leyden jar (obs.; in Fr.).
1752. Johnson, Rambl., No. 199, ¶ 13. The efficacy of the magnet … depends much upon its armature.
1871. trans. Schellen’s Spectr. Anal., § 11. 33. And the magnet, becoming weaker, lets loose the armature.
7. Arch. ‘Iron bars or framing employed in the consolidation of a building.’ Parker, Conc. Gloss. Arch., 1846. (So in Fr.)
