Armor

How to spell armor

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce armor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does armor mean?

1. nounA protective metal or composite covering worn in battle or fitted to a vehicle, tank, or structure.

Armor in a sentence

• The museum displayed a full suit of medieval armor behind glass.

• The convoy traveled in vehicles plated with heavy armor.

Where does armor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun arma, meaning 'weapons' or 'equipment', which also gave us 'arms' and 'army'. From arma the Latins formed armatura, meaning a soldier's full kit of defensive gear, and that word passed into Old French as armure (also spelled armeure), referring to the protective covering a fighter wore. English borrowed it in the 1300s, originally with the French spelling carrying the 'u'. In American usage the 'u' was later dropped to give the streamlined 'armor', following Noah Webster's nineteenth-century preference for shorter, more phonetic spellings, while British and Canadian writing kept 'armour'. The trap for an American writer is that the silent-vowel temptation pulls toward 'armour', the form constantly seen in British books, films, and games.

How the word is built

• arm- (from Latin arma: weapons, equipment)
• -or (noun suffix denoting a thing or state)

British and American spelling

Armor is the American spelling. British English spells it armour.