Meaning of cyclas | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A long gown or surcoat, cut off at the front, worn in the Middle Ages, sometimes embroidered or interwoven with gold.
2. An expensive material from which such gowns were made. It is unclear what the material was.

Examples

“1905-06, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Nigel The old tunic, overtunic and cyclas were too sad and simple for the new fashions, so now strange and brilliant cotehardies, pourpoints, courtepies, paltocks, hanselines and many other wondrous garments, particoloured or diapered, with looped, embroidered or escalloped edges, flamed and glittered round the King.”

“The effigy of Sir John de Lyons (1346) at Warkworth, in Northamptonshire, shows slight further changes; a gambeson, a sleeved haketon, and a cyclas are worn.”

CEFR level