ventaille

Noun

ventail (plural ventails)

1. (historical) Synonym of aventail (“mail curtain or flap, on a helmet or a mail coif, that protects the lower face and neck”).
   • Having unhorsed this enemy and hacked him into submission, the knight rips off his foe's helmet and turns down the mail ventail (protecting the vulnerable throat), perhaps pounds the fellow's face a bit with the pommel of his sword; ...1999, Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 206

   Synonyms:

   aventail

2. (historical) The movable front part of a medieval helmet, originally including the visor but later specifically the separate lower section.
   • A comely knight, all arm'd in complete wize, / Through whose bright ventayle lifted vp on hye / His manly face [...] Lookt foorth [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
3. (historical, rare) A vent or breathing-hole in a medieval helmet, for the admission of air.
   • 398. ventayles : a pun on ventails, 'something acting as a sail or fan', and ventails, the air holes or vents in the vizor of a helmet.1969, John Skelton, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series: John Skelton: Poems, Clarendon Medieval and Tudor, page 187