Definition of armoury noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary



    (especially US English armory)noun
    BrE BrE//ˈɑːməri//
    ; NAmE NAmE//ˈɑːrməri//
    (pl. armouries)
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  1. 1a place where weapons and armour are kept synonym arsenal
  2. 2(in the US or Canada) a building which is the headquarters for training people who are not professional soldiers, for example the National Guard
  3. 3(formal) the things that somebody has available to help them achieve something Doctors have an armoury of drugs available.
  4. 4all the weapons and military equipment that a country has Britain’s nuclear armoury
  5. Word Origin Middle English (in the sense ‘armour’): from Old French armoirie, armoierie, from armoier ‘to blazon’, from arme ‘weapon’, from Latin arma. The change in the second syllable in the 17th cent. was due to association with armour.Extra examples In karate, strength is not the only weapon in your armoury. It was not long before Britain’s nuclear armoury expanded. Several guns had been stolen from the palace armoury. The tiger has a formidable armoury of fang, claw, power and speed. We collected our rifles from the armoury for our first lesson in shooting.