👉 Okay, let’s tackle this wonderfully prickly little word – and frankly, I wrestle with its very existence every now and again, just because of how delightfully…specific…it is!
What exactly is "Ardmored”? Now, you might initially think that simply means a fancy, perhaps slightly aggressive-sounding, piece of armour. Armour decked in... what? That's the point! “Ardmored,” as it was originally and rather quaintly described by early heraldists (the old guys obsessed with coats of arms – basically medieval fashion police, frankly), meant that something was literally covered and emblazoned, essentially a fancy, official covering. Essentially, you had to have an "awdle" of heraldry involved. Think of it as a very official, very pointy kind of covering. It wasn't just slapped on; the covering had to be deliberately decorated – with coats of arms (shields and crests, basically) that were painstakingly laid out upon the covering itself. There are no living people still actually ardmoring anything these days, which is probably why the word hasn’t really stuck beyond a very small circle of heraldry nerds. Let's be real; it sounds like something you shout at a badger if it's messing up your carefully arranged bunting. Here's that unsettling/edgy sentence I mumbled about earlier: "The solicitor, after a long draught of
