Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Armigerous
Ar-mig′er-ous
,Adj.
Bearing arms.
[R.]
They belonged to the
armigerous
part of the population, and were entitled to write themselves Esquire. De Quincey.
Webster 1828 Edition
Armigerous
ARMIG'EROUS
,Adj.
Literally, bearing arms. But in present usage, armiger is a title of dignity next in degree to a knight. In times of chivalry, it signified an attendant on a knight, or other person of rank, who bore his shield and rendered him other military services. so in antiquity, Abimilech, Saul, &c. had their armor bearers. Judg. 9. 1Sam. 16. as had Hector and Achilles. This title, under the French princes, in England, was exchanged, in common usage, for esquire, L. scutum, a shield. Armiger is still retained with us as a title of respect, being the Latin word equivalent to esquire, which see.
Definition 2024
armigerous
armigerous
English
Adjective
armigerous (not comparable)
- Entitled to bear a coat of arms.
- 1903, George Angus, "Arms of Married Women", Notes and Queries (ser. 9) 9 (Jan-Jun): 197
- Mr. Udal suggests that an armigerous woman who marries an non-armigerous man may still display her own arms. But how? Her husband has no shield, so where are the wife's arms to go?
- 1981, Nigel Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century, page 23
- Although the rolls of arms upon which Denholm-Young relied so heavily do not after all show that the esquires became armigerous in about 1370, it is still significant that the arms of esquires which were not emblazoned on the Parliamentary, Carlisle or Dunstable Rolls should appear for the first time on a roll of arms in about 1370.
- 1903, George Angus, "Arms of Married Women", Notes and Queries (ser. 9) 9 (Jan-Jun): 197