BUCKLER

Buckler

A buckler is a small shield, 15 to 45 cm in diameter, gripped in the fist. It was generally used as a companion weapon in hand-to-hand combat during the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its size made it poor protection against missile weapons but useful in deflecting the blow of an opponent's sword or mace. There are two major forms of medievally documented bucklers. The first is a simple round shield with the fist positioned directly behind the boss with a variety of shapes of face and depths of rim. These could also have projections from the top and bottom as in Hans Talhoffer's Fechtbücher or serrated rings around the boss as in one example in the Wallace ...

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buckler

Noun

  1. A kind of shield, of various shapes and sizes, worn on one of the arms (usually the left) for protecting the front of the body. In the sword and buckler play of the Middle Ages in England, the buckler was a small shield, used, not to cover the body, but to stop or parry blows.
  2. A shield resembling the Roman scutum. In modern usage, a smaller variety of shield is usually implied by this term.
  3. One of the large, bony, external plates found on many ganoid fishes.
  4. The anterior segment of the shell of trilobites.
  5. A block of wood or plate of iron made to fit a hawse hole, or the circular opening in a half-port, to prevent water from entering when the vessel pitches.

Verb

  1. To shield; to defend.
    Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right, / Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree? — Shakespeare.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: buckler
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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