Obs. exc. Hist. Also 6 ? flaunkart, flankett, 8 flankart, 9 (Hist.) flanchard. [a. OF. flancard, f. flanc FLANK sb.1]
1. a. A piece of armor for the thigh. b. In horse-armor, one of the side-pieces covering the flanks.
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, vi. 141–2. The sworde roughte he cut thrugh, the flesshe, & well an hundred mayles of his flancardes, and made hym a grete wounde in to the haunche.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. xi. 76. Burnist flaukartis [? read flan- or flaun-] and leg harnes.
1548. Hall, Chron., 12 a. Some had the mainferres, the close gantlettes, the guissettes, the flancardes droped & gutted with red.
1535. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 221. This beast [Bardati], is of forme and shape much lyke to a barbed horse with his barbes and flankettes in all poyntes.
1870. C. C. Black, trans. Demmin’s Weapons War, 350. The side pieces or flanchards (Flankenpanzer or Seitenblätter in German), which joined the front plate or breast-piece to the thigh-pieces and croupière.
2. = FLANKER sb.1
1767. T. Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., II. ii. 163. This house being attacked, the women put on their husbands hats and jackets, and let their hair loose, to make the appearance of men; and firing briskly from the flankarts, saved the house and caused the enemy to retreat.
