Her. [trans. F. cotte d’armes.]
1. Hist. A coat or vest embroidered with heraldic arms; a tabard. (See ARMOUR 10, COAT-ARMOUR 1.)
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, xxvi. 555. He knewe hym well, for he bare his owne cote of armes.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 497. The priest … cutteth it [misselto] off, and they beneath receive it in a white souldiours cassocke or coat of armes.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 103. The Councel … caused the Herald in his coat of Armes to wind his Horn thrice.
2. The distinctive heraldic bearings of a gentleman (armiger) originally borne on a ‘coat of arms’ (sense 1); a shield, escutcheon. (See ARM sb.2 14, ARMOUR 10.)
1562. Leigh, Armory, 27. If he come into the combate campe with his sayde wifes cote of armes.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath. (1839), 81. Scutcheons, and coats of arms hereditary.
1833. Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de V., ii. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
fig. 1718. Freethinker, No. 108. 24. The Second Letter … was sealed with a Thimble, the Coat of Arms of a Housewife.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., xxvi. These are their [Indians’] ‘coats’ of arms, symbolical of the ‘medicine’ of the wearer.
† 3. = Coat of mail (COAT sb. 5). Obs. rare. [So F. cotte d’armes = cotte de maille.]
1613. Heywood, Silver Age, III. Wks. 1874, III. 131. Thus the Nemean terror naked lyes, Despoyl’d of his inuinced Coat of Armes.
1844. Costello, Tour Béarn & Pyrenees, II. 56. An old gallery, filled with rusty coats of arms.
