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le-breasted coat; or a button with a loop for a single-breasted coat. -- Coat of mail, a defensive garment of chain mail. See Chain mail, under Chain. -- Mast coat (Naut.), a piece of canvas nailed around a mast, where it passes through the deck, to prevent water from getting below. -- Sail coat (Naut.), a canvas co…

ter principle." I. Taylor. Counter approach (Fort.), a trench or work pushed forward from defensive works to meet the approaches of besiegers. See Approach. -- Counter bond (Law), in old practice, a bond to secure one who has given bond for another. -- Counter brace. See Counter brace, in Vocabulary. -- Counter deed…

A piece of defensive armor, covering the body from the neck to the girdle.

Defensive armor for the thighs. [ Written also cuisse, and quish.]

Serving, or suitable, for defense; defensive. [Obs.] With men of courage and with means defendant. Shak.

Act or skill in making defense; defensive plan or policy; practice in self defense, as in fencing, boxing, etc. A man of great defense. Spenser. By how much defense is better than no skill. Shak.

Tending to defend; defensive; as, defensory preparations.

Affording defense; defensive. [Obs.] Congreve.

To act on the defensive, or in opposition; to resist; to parry; to shift off. The dexterous management of terms, and being able to fend . . . with them, passes for a great part of learning. Locke.

To raise defensive works. Milton.

ion which is covered overhead as well as at the sides. When prepared for defense, it is a defensive galery.

A defensive garment formerly in use for the body, made of cloth stuffed and quilted.

A series of chambers in defensive mines. Farrow.

A defensive covering for the head. See Casque, Headpiece, Morion, Sallet, and Illust. of Beaver.

Any defensive work consisting of at least a trench or ditch and a parapet made from the earth thrown up in making such a ditch. On our side, we have thrown up intrenchments on Winter and Prospect Hills. Washington.

ose, used for catching horses, cattle, etc. Lasso cell (Zoöl.), one of a peculiar kind of defensive and offensive stinging cells, found in great numbers in all coelenterates, and in a few animals of other groups. They are most highly developed in the tentacles of jellyfishes, hydroids, and Actiniæ. Each of these cells…

A flexible fabric made of metal rings interlinked. It was used especially for defensive armor. Chaucer. Chain mail, Coat of mail. See under Chain, and Coat.

Making the first attack; assailant; aggressive; hence, used in attacking; -- opposed to defensive; as, an offensive war; offensive weapons. League offensive and defensive, a leaque that requires all the parties to it to make war together against any foe, and to defend one another if attacked.

Defensive armor in general; a full suit of defensive armor. Milton. We had need to take the Christian panoply, to put on the whole armor of God. Ray.

a thrust or blow, as in sword and bayonet exercises or in boxing; hence, figuratively, a defensive movement in debate or other intellectual encounter.