[a. L. armiger bearing arms, an armor-bearer; in med.L. a squire.] An esquire; orig. one who attended a knight to bear his shield, etc.; in later usage, one entitled to bear heraldic arms.

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[1598.  Shaks., Merry W., I. i. 10. A Gentleman borne … who writes himselfe Armigero.]

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1762.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), V. 111. Carew Reynell, armiger.

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c. 1840.  De Quincey, Autobiog. Sk., ii. Wks. II. 92. Entitled to proclaim himself an Armiger; which is the newest … mode of saying that one is privileged to bear arms in a sense intelligible only to the Heralds’ College.

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1869.  Blackmore, Lorna Doone, xiii. 74. He … could buy up half the county armigers.

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