Meanings
plural camails
- historicalA piece of chainmail worn to protect the neck and shoulders, replacing the whole-head coif.
[…] the hood was increasingly replaced with a mail curtain (the camail or aventail) suspended from the outside of the bascinet, and the bascinet thus augmented gradually replaced the clumsy great helm as the principal defense […]
1995, William W. Kibler, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 126Synonyms: aventail
- historicalAn ecclesiastical ornament worn by bishops.
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA piece of chainmail worn to protect the neck and shoulders, replacing the whole-head coif.
More synonyms by meaning
nouna medieval hood of mail suspended from a basinet to protect the head and neck
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Old Occitancapmalh
- Frenchcamail
- Englishcamail
Borrowed in the late 1600s from French camail, from Old Occitan capmalh.
More words from French, Old Occitan
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with camail
Anagrams
Cite this entry
camail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/camail
“camail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/camail. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “camail,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/camail.
Source: camail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.