tonlet

plural tonlets · alternative tonnelet

1. historicalA long armoured skirt, designed for combat on foot.

   Accordingly, the Greenwich armoury hurriedly prepared a somewhat more conventional suit of foot combat armour made from existing pieces but incorporating newly made symmetrical pauldrons and a tonlet.

   2014, Glenn Richardson, The Field of Cloth of Gold, Yale University Press, →ISBN

   1 more example

   On some the buttocks and groin are also fully encased in steel; while, on others, these same parts are protected by a tonlet, a deep steel skirt that widens downward to facilitate leg movement (see cat. 37).

   2019, Pierre Terjanian, Andrea Bayer, et al., The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I, Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 96

2. historicalOne of the plates which make up such a skirt.

   The steel tonlets are rigid, not overlapping and movable.

   2013, Wolfgang Bruhn, Max Tilke, A Pictorial History of Costume From Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century: With Over 1900 Illustrated Costumes, Including 1000 in Full Color, Courier Corporation, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Soon after this the six or eight "tonlets" grow fewer, being continued on the lower edge by the so-called tuilles, small plates strapped to the tonlets and swinging with the movement of the legs.

   1926, Hugh Chisholm, James Louis Garvin, The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature & General Information. 13th Ed., Being Volumes One to Twenty-eight of the Latest Standard Edition with the Three New Volumes Covering Recent Years and the Index Volume, page 588

   His legs and thighs were similarly covered in plate, his loins by a mail apron over which was a short skirt of horizontal, overlapping plate 'tonlets'. His torso was protected by breast and back plates, the former reinforced […]

   2014, Desmond Seward, Richard III: England's Black Legend, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN