sans nombre

English

Etymology

French sans nombre (“numberless”)

Prepositional phrase

sans nombre

1. (heraldry) Repeated (as a charge like a billet or a division like paly) many times, covering the field with no set number (of the thing).
   • 1812, Arthur Collins, Collins's Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical, page 376:

     Sixth, de la Plaunche, Argent, a lion rampant, Sable, crowned, Or, round him billets sans nombre, Sable.

   • 1877, University magazine, The Dublin university magazine, page 442:

     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.

   • 1894, Henry Gough, James Parker, A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry, page 380:

     [...] ancient inheritance of his father's family, which were azure, eight lioncels (or perhaps lioncels sans nombre) or.

   • 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:

     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, Robert Hudson George, A History of the Herefordshire Borderland, page 175:

     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 […]

   • 1921, The Ecclesiastical Review, page 463:

     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 […]

References

• 1666, John Guillim, A Display of Heraldrie, page 280:

  [...] but first give me leave to tell you that this Billette is by some French Heralds Blazoned, Billets Sans nombre.

• 1847, Henry Gough, A Glossary of Terms Used in British Heraldry: With a Chronological Table, Illustrative of Its Rise and Progress, page 276:

  Some say that when a field is strewed with many of the same figure, and they are all entire, the term sans nombre should be used, but when parts of some of them are cut off by the outline of the shield, semé, or aspersed.

French

Etymology

Literally, “without number”

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɑ̃ nɔ̃bʁ/

Adjective

sans nombre (invariable)

1. countless, innumerable (in great number)

   Synonym: innombrable

   Near-synonym: incalculable

   des mensonges sans nombre ― countless lies

References

• “nombre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.