Word.ws English Dictionary

chain-mail

chain-mail is the alternative spelling of chain mail.

Meaning of chain mail

Noun (1)

chain mail (usually uncountable, plural chain mails)

  1. (usually) A flexible defensive armor, made of a mesh of interlinked metal rings.
    • Chain mail is formed by a number of iron rings, each ring having four others inserted into it, the whole exhibiting a kind of net work, with circular meshes, every ring separately rivetted; this kind of mail answers to that worn on the ancient breast plates, whence they were denominated loricæ...1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 11
    Synonyms:
    armor

Noun (2)

chain mail (countable and uncountable, plural chain mails)

  1. (collective, sometimes) A chain letter.

Questions about chain-mail

What is chain-mail the alternative spelling of?
Chain-mail is the alternative spelling of chain mail.

Words near chain-mail in the dictionary

  1. chain-lighting
  2. chain-lights
  3. chain-link
  4. chain-links
  5. chain-lit
  6. chain-mail
  7. chain-melted
  8. chain-melted state
  9. chain-of-responsibility pattern
  10. chain-of-responsibility patterns
  11. chain-shot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chain-mail (page history and authors); chain mail (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.

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