arrays

Noun

array (countable and uncountable, plural arrays)

1. Clothing and ornamentation; raiment.
   • Sovay, Sovay all on a day, She dressed herself in man's array, With a sword and a pistol all by her side, To meet her true love to meet her true love away did ride.2017, anonymous author, “Sovay”, in Roud # 7, Laws N21
2. A collection laid out to be viewed in full.
   • The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced...1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament...
3. An orderly series, arrangement or sequence.
   • But the chivalry of France was represented by as gallant an array of nobles and cavaliers as ever fought under the banner of the lilies1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC
4. Order; a regular and imposing arrangement; disposition in regular lines; hence, order of battle.
   • drawn up in battle array
5. A large collection.
   • We offer a dazzling array of choices.

   Synonyms:

   panoply

6. A matrix.

See all 14 meanings of array