Armour

How to spell armour

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce armour

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does armour mean?

1. nounA protective metal or composite covering worn in combat or fitted to a vehicle or structure.
2. verbTo equip or cover something with protective plating or defences.

Armour in a sentence

• noun

  The museum displays a suit of medieval armour once worn by a knight.

• verb

  Engineers plan to armour the new patrol vehicles against blasts.

• noun

  The tank's reinforced armour deflected the shell.

• verb

  The firm will armour its servers with extra security layers.

Where does armour come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from the Old French armure, which itself came from the Latin armatura, meaning 'equipment for war' or 'a fitting out with weapons'. The ultimate root is the Latin arma, the plural noun for 'weapons' or 'tools of war', the same source that gives us 'army', 'arsenal' and 'armament'. English adopted it in the 1200s and 1300s, originally to describe the metal coverings a knight wore in battle, before the meaning widened to any protective covering, including the steel plating of warships and tanks. The British and Canadian spelling keeps the French-derived -our ending, where American English trimmed it to -or; this -our pattern follows the same path as colour and honour. The vowel cluster -our is the spelling trap here, since the sound gives no clue that a silent-feeling 'u' belongs before the final 'r'.

How the word is built

• arm- (from Latin arma: weapons, equipment)
• -our (noun suffix, British spelling of -or)

British and American spelling

Armour is the British spelling. American English spells it armor.