argent vive, quicksilver. B. Jonson, Alchemist, ii. 1 (Mammon). Cp. F. vif-argent, quick-silver (Cotgr.).
Argier, Argièr, Algier, Algiers. Argier, Temp. i. 2. 261; Argiers, Massinger, Unnat. Combat, i. 1 (Beauf. sen.).
argin, an embankment in front of a fort, glacis. Marlowe, 2 Tamburlaine, iii. 2. 85; 3. 23. Ital. argine, ‘a banke’ (Florio). See Ducange (s.v. Arger (‘agger’) and Arginerius).
argolet, a light-armed horse-soldier. Peele, Battle of Alcazar, i. 2. 2; iv. 1 (Abdelmelec). F. argolet (Cotgr.); argoulet, Essais de Montaigne I. xxv (ed. 1870, p. 68): ‘Les argoulets étaient des arquebuisiers à cheval; et comme ils n’étaient pas considérables en comparaison des autres cavaliers on a dit un argoulet pour un homme de néant’ (Ménage).
argolettier, a light-armed horse-soldier. Florio, tr. Montaigne, bk. i. ch. 25: ‘Guidone, a banner or cornet for horsemen that be shot, or Argolettiers’, Florio, Ital. Dict. See NED.
argosy, a merchant-vessel. Twice used as if it were plural; Marlowe, Jew of Malta, i. 1. The original sense was ‘a ship of Ragusa’, the name of a port in Dalmatia, on the Adriatic. Ragusa appears in 16th-cent. English as Aragouse, Arragosa (NED.).
argument, subject, topic, theme. Much Ado, i. 1. 266; 1 Hen. IV, ii. 2. 104; ii. 4. 314. So L. argumentum (Quintilian).
arietation, an attack with a battering-ram. Bacon, Essay 58, § 8. L. ariēs, a ram.
armado, an army. Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 14. Span. armada. Med. L. armata, army (Ducange); cp. F. armée.
armiger, an esquire. Purposely altered to armigero in Merry Wives, i. 1. 10. L. armiger, one who bears arms, in Med. L. an esquire.