tonlet

noun

1. (historical)A long armoured skirt, designed for combat on foot.

   “Accordingly, the Greenwich armoury hurriedly prepared a somewhat more conventional suit of foot combat armour made from existing pieces but incorporating newly made symmetrical pauldrons and a tonlet.”

   “On some the buttocks and groin are also fully encased in steel; while, on others, these same parts are protected by a tonlet, a deep steel skirt that widens downward to facilitate leg movement (see cat. 37).”

2. (historical)One of the plates which make up such a skirt.

   “Soon after this the six or eight "tonlets" grow fewer, being continued on the lower edge by the so-called tuilles, small plates strapped to the tonlets and swinging with the movement of the legs.”

   “The steel tonlets are rigid, not overlapping and movable.”

   “His legs and thighs were similarly covered in plate, his loins by a mail apron over which was a short skirt of horizontal, overlapping plate 'tonlets'. His torso was protected by breast and back plates, the former reinforced […]”