Paunce

//pɔːns// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A piece of armour which covers the abdomen or lower body. historical

    "The chest of armour, explicitly stated to have belonged to Oldcastle, contained a pair of 'close bristeplattes', a steel 'paunce', chain mail and another breastplate 'cum lez wyngges', all of which had been confiscated by Sir Thomas ..."

  2. 2
    Obsolete form of pansy. alt-of, obsolete

    "She secretly would search each daintie lim, / And throw into the well sweet Rosmaryes, / And fragrant violets, and Paunces trim […]"

Example

More examples

"The chest of armour, explicitly stated to have belonged to Oldcastle, contained a pair of 'close bristeplattes', a steel 'paunce', chain mail and another breastplate 'cum lez wyngges', all of which had been confiscated by Sir Thomas ..."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English paunce, from Old French pance, Middle French pans. Doublet of paunch.

Etymology 2

See pansy.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.