buckler

Syllables: buck·ler/ˈbʌk.lə/US/ˈbʌk.lɚ/

buckler noun: one who buckles something.

Image: Pearson Scott Foresman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

buckler (plural bucklers)

One who buckles something.
- Bucklers will be assigned to buckle up drivers in the morning and make sure they stay buckled up.1986, Press Summary - Illinois Information Service, page 6724
A kind of shield, of various shapes and sizes, held in the hand or worn on the arm (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.
- I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw -- ecce signum!c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
(obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum. In modern usage, a smaller variety of shield is usually implied by this term.
- The target or buckler was carried by the heavy armed foot, it answered to the scutum of the Romans; its form was sometimes that of a rectangular parallelogram, but more commonly had it's bottom rounded off; it was generally convex, being curved in it's breadth.1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 22
One of the large, bony, external plates found on many ganoid fishes.
- Most zeids have spiny projections or bucklers at the dorsal- and anal-fin bases and bony plates on the ventral surface of the abdomen.2000, Jeffrey Martin Leis, Brooke M. Carson-Ewart, The Larvae of Indo-Pacific Coastal Fishes, page 186
The anterior segment of the shell of a trilobite.
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

buckler (third-person singular simple present bucklers, present participle bucklering, simple past and past participle bucklered)

(obsolete, transitive) To shield; to defend.
- Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right, / Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...

Proper noun capitalized: Buckler

Buckler

A surname.

buckler meaning in Tamil, Arabic and Persian

buckler in Persian

small shield: ترس tors, مجن mejann, مگند magend

Forms of buckler

Noun
plural	bucklers
Verb
third-person singular present	bucklers
present participle	bucklering
past participle	bucklered
past	bucklered

Origin of buckler

From Middle English bukler, bokler, bokeler, bokeleer, from Old French bocler, boucler, bucler, (French bouclier) from Vulgar Latin *bucculārius (“bossed”), from Latin buccula (“boss”). Merged with buckle + -er.

Words formed from buckler

Phrases with buckler

Questions about buckler

What does buckler mean?: Buckler means one who buckles something.
What is buckler in Tamil?: Buckler in Tamil is கைக் கேடயம். See Buckler meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is buckler?: Buckler can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce buckler?: Buckler is pronounced /ˈbʌk.lə/ (UK).
What is the plural of buckler?: The plural of buckler is bucklers.

Words near buckler in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: buckler (page history and authors); Buckler (page history and authors); buckler (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-buckler.wav.

Cite this entry: “buckler.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buckler. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.