Definition of "heraldry" []

• The profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning arms, tracing genealogies, and determining and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. (noun)
• A branch of knowledge dealing with the history and description in proper terms of armorial bearings and their accessories. (noun)
• Armorial ensigns or similar insignia. (noun)
• Pomp and ceremony, especially attended with armorial trappings; pageantry. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This is one of those passages for which the editor of that review has merited an abatement in heraldry, no such writing ever having been written; and indeed, by other like assertions of equal veracity, the gentleman has richly entitled himself to bear a gore sinister tenne in his escutcheon."
• "More trivia: in heraldry, a vertical stripe on a flag is called a "pale" (the French tricolour is made up of three pales, for example)."
• "The auriferata (which is made of cloth of gold or of thin gold plates, and is not jewelled) is the one always used in English heraldry for an Anglican bishop or archbishop."