sans nombre en · ADP
Etymology
From French sans nombre (“numberless”).
Meanings
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Repeated (as a charge like a billet or a division like paly) many times, covering the field with no set number (of the thing).
Sixth, de la Plaunche, Argent, a lion rampant, Sable, crowned, Or, round him billets sans nombre, Sable.
1812, Arthur Collins, Collins's Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical, page 376:Charles VI. restored to the scutcheon of France the three lilies, first borne by Clovis; the race of Pepin having borne the azure field, semée des fleurs de lys sans nombre, which were also borne by the House of Capet down to 1389.
1877, University magazine, The Dublin university magazine, page 442:The Northamptonshire Washingtons, or one branch of them, bore the following arms: "Paly (sans nombre) argent and gules with three mullets of the first on a chief azure." Another branch of the family bore : Argent with two bars[…]
1914, Robert Hudson George, A History of the Herefordshire Borderland, page 175:Below the rose are the arms of Poitou, golden towers on red, and the old arms of France, azure with fleurs-de-lis sans nombre. Opposite to this on the south side is a small rose with the later shield of France, with only three[…]
1914, Arthur J. de Havilland Bushnell, Storied Windows: A Traveller's Introduction to the Study of Old Church Glass, from the Twelfth Century to the Renaissance, Especially in France, page 188:Quarterly, bendy sans nombre or and gules, and likewise sinisterways of the second and first, on a pale sable between two Roman fasces in fess proper, a heart argent , charged with three bendlets purpure, and in chief an annulet[…]
1921, The Ecclesiastical Review, page 463:[...] ancient inheritance of his father's family, which were azure, eight lioncels (or perhaps lioncels sans nombre) or.
1894, Henry Gough, James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, page 380: