armsbearing

English

Etymology

From arms +‎ bearing.

Noun

armsbearing (uncountable)

1. The act of bearing arms; the possession of weapons.
   • 1826, F. D. Cartwright, editor, The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 244:

     II. A MILITIA OF ALL MEN CAPABLE OF ARMSBEARING.

   • 1827 July, “1. Vindication of H. D. Sedgwick, with some Inquiries respecting the Award in the Case of the Greek Frigates. […]”, in The North American Review, volume XXV, number LVI, Boston, Mass.: Frederick T. Gray, […], page 43:

     Could this be effected; could all the population of the Turkish empire, of armsbearing age, be enlisted in an army, organized, disciplined, and led like the armies of France and of England, it would indeed make the Porte formidable, not merely to the Greeks, but to the leading powers in Europe, who are now able to look, with stoical calmness, at the feeble and ineffectual blows aimed by Turkey at a people who stand on the frontier of Christendom.

   • 2013, Lawrence G. Duggan, Armsbearing and the Clergy in the History and Canon Law of Western Christianity, The Boydell Press, →ISBN, page 224:

     Within a few decades both the regular Dominicans and Franciscans, admittedly in response to more recent papal legislation as well as to these stipulations of the 1280s, were allowing armsbearing to their members under certain conditions;

   • 2017, Daniel M. G. Gerrard, The Church at War: The Military Activities of Bishops, Abbots and Other Clergy in England, c.900-1200, Routledge, page 160:

     As was made clear by the council of Coyanza, prohibitions on clerical armsbearing were developed in the context of the wider drive to reform the clergy of Europe in councils that were often presided over by the pope’s own representatives.

Adjective

armsbearing (not comparable)

1. Engaged in bearing arms; armed.
   • 1837, Speech of Mr Cushing of Massachusetts, on the Proposition to Censure Mr John Quincy Adams, for an Alleged Disrespect to the House of Representatives, page 11:

     In a war with a single tribe, near a tenth part of the armsbearing population of Massachusetts was killed, and one house in ten laid in ashes.

   • 1866, read by John Gough Nichols, “The armorial windows erected in the reign of Henry VI. by John Viscount Beaumont and Katharine Duchess of Norfolk in Woodhouse Chapel, by the Park of Beaumanor, in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. Including an investigation of the differences of the Coat of Neville.”, in Transactions of the Leicestershire Architectural and Archæological Society, volume I, Leicester: Crossley and Clarke, page 326:

     I shall proceed, however, to investigate, as far as possible, the several differences borne by the Nevilles upon the saltire of their first armsbearing ancestor, Robert fitz Maldred.

   • 1878 May 1, “The Color Question”, in The National Guardsman: A Journal Devoted to the Interests of the National Guard of the U. S., volume I, number 10, New York, N.Y.: Charles A. Coffin, […], page 169:

     When it is understood that in a single county in New Jersey, that of Essex, but two per cent. of the armsbearing population liable to military duty is enrolled in the National Guard, the objection, apart from every other consideration, to creating the whole or a considerable majority of any one class or race of citizen armsbearers carries no little weight.

   • 1979, Carl Steenstrup, Hōjō Shigetoki (1198-1261) and His Role in the History of Political and Ethical Ideas in Japan, Curzon Press, →ISBN, page 7:

     The net result of both wars was the victory of an armsbearing equestrian gentry with a lifestyle radically different from that of the courtiers.