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Glite Dictionary
heraldry

heraldry

1 9.9
The art and rules of making coats of arms and family crests
  • noun
  • /ˈhɛrəl dri/
  • Specialized
: heráldica
  • I've also been reading up on the technical side of heraldry.
  • display of heraldry

And they'd, they'd spray painted silver and we made like Shields and we learned about heraldry and painted the Shields.

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Examples

  • Barfoot dearly loves all the pageantry and ceremony, the ancient military sports and rites, the rules and customs of heraldry.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • What I do is study, research, teach, and write about heraldry.

    Blog text (16)

  • Heraldry, almost reads like a map of European history.

    Felix Austria! (2013)

  • And I like to share what I have learned about heraldry; hence this blog.

    Blog text (16)

  • Oh, I also have an MA in linguistics, and I am obsessed with heraldry.

    Blog text (5)

  • Heraldry was both a serious pursuit and a playful pastime at Strawberry Hill.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Stylistically, his statements, like heraldry for the contemporary world, are characterized by clarity, legibility, and nonambiguity.

    Academic text (1999)

  • In a remarkable series of books and articles, Michel Pastoureau has transformed the modern study of heraldry and brought it out of the almost exclusive province of genealogists and into the history of ideas.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Walpole's family romance is recognizable in the displays of heraldry at Strawberry Hill, reflecting his descent from the Walpole and Shorter lines.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The historian explained the significance of the heraldry displayed on the knight's shield.

Surface Forms

heraldry singular
heraldries plural

Morphology

heraldry = herald (semi-transparent) = herald + ry

Formed from 'herald' + the noun-forming suffix '-ry' meaning the practice/field of heralds, but the specialized sense 'system of coats of arms' is domain-specific and not fully predictable to an average learner.

Etymology

Heraldry comes from the old word herald, a person who in the past announced people at battles and tournaments and described the designs on their shields. So heraldry became the name for the system of coats of arms, the designs and rules people used on shields and family crests.