Meanings
plural hoguines
- historicalAn item of armor worn in the 16th century, consisting of overlapping lames to protect the buttocks.
80 Backplate, Hoguine, and Sleeves German, ca. 1525 Steel, etched and partly gilt; 27 x 18 in. (68.6 x 45.7 cm.) (Backplate and hoguine) Gift of Bashford Dean. 1924 (24.179); (sleeves) Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness Fund, 1926 (26.188.12)[…]
1987, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), The Renaissance in the North, Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 1143 more examples
Some polished corslets, varnished backs and breasts, cleaned the headpieces, mail-coats, brigandines, salads, helmets, morions, jacks, gushets, gorgets, hoguines, brassars, and cuissars, corslets, haubergeons, shields, bucklers, targets, greaves, gauntlets, and spurs. Others made ready bows, slings, crossbows, pellets, catapults, migrains or fire-balls, firebrands,
1888, François Rabelais, The Sequel to Pantagruel: Being Books 3-5 Gargantua and the Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel [translated by T. Urquhart]The lower part of the body is protected in front by the taces and behind by the hoguine (fig. 3). […] Those broad lames [of the taces[ have on the sinister side half-hinges corresponding to half-hinges on the sinister sides of the hoguine.
1912, The Archaeological Journal, page 79Gifts include, from the Curator, state halberds and a back-plate, engraved and gilded, probably from the atelier of Seusenhofer; this belonged to one of the Princes Radzivil and remained in the possession of the family until recently. It is the sixth specimen retaining the hoguine.
1925, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Annual Report of the Trustees, page 22Synonyms: culet, garde de rein
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAn item of armor worn in the 16th century, consisting of overlapping lames to protect the buttocks.
Origin
- Frenchhoguine
- Englishhoguine
From French hoguine (or a Middle or Old French predecessor), which by the mid-1600s denoted a culet. In earlier French texts the term denoted armor for the arms, thighs and/or lower legs; compare the Scots borrowing hogingis (1541), which the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue defines as "pieces of armour covering the arms, thighs and legs". Of uncertain origin; compare Old French hoguette (“small barrel”), hoguinele, and French hoguiner (“annoy, torment, molest; thwart”); the FEW connects hoguine, hoguiner and houguette to Old Norse haugr (“hill”), but this is unconvincing from a semantic point of view.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
hoguine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoguine
“hoguine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoguine. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hoguine,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hoguine.
Source: hoguine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.