Arms
/ɑːrmz/noun
Weapons or, in plural use, the upper limbs of the body.
Did you know?The weapon sense and the body-part sense come from different Latin roots that merged in English, which is why one tiny word can point to both violence and anatomy.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*h₂er-
“to fit together, join”
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*h₂er-
“to arrange, put in order”
Old English
OE
earm
“arm, upper limb”
Old French
OF
armes
“weapons, equipment for war”
Middle English
English
armes
“weapons, heraldic devices”
Modern English
English
arms
“weapons; upper limbs”