camail

Borrowed in the late 1600s from French camail, from Old Occitan capmalh.

• IPA^(key): /kəˈmeɪl/, /ˈkæm.eɪl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

camail (plural camails)

1. (historical) A piece of chainmail worn to protect the neck and shoulders, replacing the whole-head coif.

   Synonym: aventail

   • 1995, William W. Kibler, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 126:

     […] the hood was increasingly replaced with a mail curtain (the camail or aventail) suspended from the outside of the bascinet, and the bascinet thus augmented gradually replaced the clumsy great helm as the principal defense […]

2. (historical) An ecclesiastical ornament worn by bishops.

• Lamica, Milaca, amical, calami, lamaic

Inherited from Old French camail, a borrowing from Old Occitan capmalh.

• IPA^(key): /ka.maj/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

camail m (plural camails)

1. camail, capuchin (hood)
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:

     Mais un froufrou de soie sur les dalles, la bordure d'un chapeau, un camail noir… C'était elle! Léon se leva et courut à sa rencontre.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “camail”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012