armory

American  

[ahr-muh-ree] / ˈɑr mə ri /

noun

• armories
  plural

1. a storage place for weapons and other war equipment.

2. a building that is the headquarters and drill center of a military unit.

3. a place where arms and armor are made; an armorer's shop; arsenal.

4. Heraldry. the art of blazoning arms.

5. heraldry.

6. arms or armor collectively.

7. Archaic. heraldic bearings or arms.

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armory British  

/ ˈɑːmərɪ /

noun

1. the usual US spelling of armoury

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• armories
  plural

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

armory armories

According to the Equasis shipping database, Sinoguards also owns the Honduras-based Sunny Ocean, a floating armory that successfully fended off an attack by Yemen’s Houthi militants in the Red Sea in 2024.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026

His band quickly took control of a federal armory and rifle factory in the sleeping town of Harpers Ferry.

From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2026

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

For protection, they’ve got an impressive armory, an electric fence and a steadfast suspicion of anyone who shows up.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2025

If Iorek Byrnison could have seen this armory, he might have admitted that these people knew something about working with metal.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

British observers touring U.S. armories in 1854 were so struck by the uniformity of American manufacturing they coined a name for it: "the American system."

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 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

From pole to pole, IOI-1 was covered with armories, bunkers, warehouses, and vehicle hangars.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

Related Words

• depot
• headquarters