Word.ws English Dictionary

chain mail

chain mail noun: a flexible defensive armor, made of a mesh of interlinked metal rings.

chain mail: a flexible defensive armor, made of a mesh of interlinked metal rings
Image: Rklawton, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

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
    • A few broken broadswords, a helmet and a couple of chain mails preserved in museums are all the relics of those far-off times.1947, Sergei Eisenstein, translated by X. Danko, edited by G. Ivanov-Mumjiev, compiled by R. Yurenev, Notes of a Film Director, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, page 36
    Synonyms:
    armor

Noun (2)

chain mail (countable and uncountable, plural chain mails)

  1. (collective, sometimes) A chain letter.

chain mail meaning in Arabic, Persian and Myanmar

chain mail in Arabic

a flexible defensive armor
زَرَد zarad

chain mail in Persian

a flexible defensive armor
زره zere

chain mail in Myanmar

a flexible defensive armor
သံချပ် samhkyap

Synonyms of chain mail

Forms of chain mail

pluralchain mails
alternative formchainmail

Origin of chain mail

chain + mail; attested since the 1780s.

From mail.

Questions about chain mail

What does chain mail mean?
Chain mail means a flexible defensive armor, made of a mesh of interlinked metal rings.
What is chain mail in Arabic?
Chain mail in Arabic is زَرَد (zarad). See Chain mail meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is chain mail?
Chain mail is a noun.
What is the plural of chain mail?
The plural of chain mail is chain mails.

Words near chain mail in the dictionary

  1. chain letter
  2. chain letters
  3. chain lightning
  4. chain locker
  5. chain lockers
  6. chain mail
  7. chain mails
  8. chain map
  9. chain maps
  10. chain migration
  11. chain migrations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

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

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