Dictionary

raiment en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɹeɪ.mənt/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Aphetized from Middle English arayment, borrowed from Anglo-Norman arraiement and Old French areement, from areer (“to array”). See array.

Meanings

1. (archaic, countable, literary, uncountable) Clothing, garments, dress, material.
   • Strange raiment clad thee like a bride, With silk to wear on hands and feet 1866, Algernon Swinburne, Aholibah, lines 11-12:
   • We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion... 2006 December 24, PZ Myers, “The Courtier's Reply”, in Pharyngula, archived from the original on 17 Feb 2012:
   • They were clad in warm raiment and heavy cloaks, and over all the Lady Éowyn wore a great blue mantle of the colour of deep summer-night, and it was set with silver stars about hem and throat. 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings):
   • For all that beauty that doth cover thee Is but the seemly raiment of my heart 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XXII”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
   • Many men, women and children, clothed in bright raiment for the Sabbath, saw with a faint flicker of interest and surprise a very white man on a trishaw, and the driver pedalling with unseemly haste. 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 379:
   • And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. / And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. / And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 4:2–4:
   • Whatever the reason for her old-fashioned appearance, certainly the mocking critics who are “making fun” of her dowdy clothes are only proving that their manners are inferior to their raiment. 1920 August 12, Helen Decle, “What’s What”, in The Everett Daily Herald, Everett, Wash., →OCLC, page 10, columns 1–2:

Forms

Deriveds

raimented · raimentless

Synonyms

array

Translations (11)

fi asu ((archaic) clothing) · pl strój ((archaic) clothing) · pl odzienie ((archaic) clothing) · az libas ((archaic) clothing) · cs oděv ((archaic) clothing) · cs roucho ((archaic) clothing) · cs háv ((archaic) clothing) · pl szata ((archaic) clothing) · bg одеяние ((archaic) clothing) · la vestītus ((archaic) clothing) · grc ἐσθής ((archaic) clothing)