heraldry

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the system, art, and study of coats of arms, including their design, description, inheritance, and regulation

   The curator used heraldry to identify the family represented by the shield's colors and symbols.

2. 2
   noun

   coats of arms and other armorial devices considered collectively

   The castle walls displayed the heraldry of successive royal houses.

Formed from herald + -ry and first recorded in the sixteenth century, displacing earlier heraldy. Herald came through Anglo-Norman and Old French from a Germanic source and named an officer who proclaimed messages and came to supervise armorial matters.

Topics