armills

Noun

armill (plural armills)

1. A bracelet used in royal coronations, especially that of the monarch of the United Kingdom (symbolically known as a "bracelet of wisdom and sincerity")
   • The Candidate for membership of Hof, Garth or Hearth shall hold an Armill, or he may touch an unsheathed Sword throughout the ceremony.2014 November 18, Stubba, The Book of Blots, page 102
2. A silken stole worn around the neck by royalty.
   • Then the King ariſing, the Dean of Weſtminſter takes the Armill from the Maſter of the great Wardrobe , and putteth it about His Majeſty's Neck[…]1727, The Form and Order of Their Majeſties Coronation, John Baskett, page 43
3. (historical) An ancient astronomical instrument, having either one ring placed in the plane of the equator for determining the time of the equinoxes (an equinoctial armil) or two or more rings, one in the plane of the meridian, for observing the solstices (a solstitial armil).
   • The Armill, Astrolabe, Dioptra, and Parallactic Instrument of the ancients were some of the instruments thus constructed.1840, William Whewell, “Introduction”, in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. […], volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […]; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: J. and...

   Synonyms:

   armillary sphere

4. (obsolete) Any bracelet or armlet.