tapul

Meaning

Noun

• A pronounced vertical ridge down the center of a breastplate, or rarely by extension a ridge on another item of armor.

Origin

• Unclear; perhaps originally an error: Edward Halle's ante-1547 Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies mentions "the plackard, the rest, the port, the burley, the tasses, the lamboys, the backpece, the tapull, and the border of the curace all gylte"; Meyrick and others after him have taken the term to denote the vertical ridge down the center of a breastplate.