armory
Americannoun
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armories
plural
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a storage place for weapons and other war equipment.
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a building that is the headquarters and drill center of a military unit.
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a place where arms and armor are made; an armorer's shop; arsenal.
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Heraldry. the art of blazoning arms.
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arms or armor collectively.
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Archaic. heraldic bearings or arms.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of armory
1300–50; Middle English armerie, armur ( i ) e < Middle French armoierie, equivalent to Old French armoi ( er ) to bear arms (derivative of armes arm 2 ) + -erie -ery
Explanation
An armory is a special military building where weapons and ammunition are kept. In the old days, when an army needed more cannon balls, it would retrieve them from an armory. An armory is an important part of a military's assets, since it stores arms and equipment and is also sometimes the place where soldiers are trained to use them. Another way to use the noun armory is to refer to a stockpile or stash of non-military goods. You might talk about, for example, your armory of cupcake recipes or your armory of perfectly sharpened pencils. The Latin root, arma, means "weapons."
Vocabulary lists containing armory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
His band quickly took control of a federal armory and rifle factory in the sleeping town of Harpers Ferry.
From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2026
“He has an armory, handcuffs, cars, and money to run his programs.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 10, 2025
The former armory, redesigned by Pritzker-winning architect Thom Mayne, now has classrooms and laboratories for Science Center educational programming.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025
Together, they could somewhat grandly be considered the armory of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force.
From New York Times ● May 4, 2024
The layout was so familiar—cohort barracks, baths, armory.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
Chinese and Russian stealth fighters, plugging a hole in Europe’s armories and possibly surpassing the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
The mobilized Marines and National Guard troops “will be stationed all across Los Angeles ... that includes Seal Beach, Los Alamitos and a number of National Guard armories across the city,” Guillot said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2025
As water drained from the dam and flooded a 50-mile stretch of the Dnieper, Ukrainian territory along the western banks was swallowed up wholesale—farms, gas stations, land mines, armories, factories, houses, railroad tracks, forests.
From Slate ● Jun. 13, 2023
Forged in the high school gyms, skating rinks, community halls, National Guard armories and rowdy dance halls of the region, the Northwest Sound evolved incrementally, by trial and error.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 2023
The Sisters kept their pantries and auxiliary libraries and armories in the seemingly endless floors belowground.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
