International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
GORGETgor'-jet: Appears only once in the King James Version (1 Samuel 17:6), being placed in the margin as an alternative to "target (of brass)" in the description of the armor worn by Goliath of Gath. The Hebrew word thus translated (kidhon) really means a "javelin," and is so rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) and the American Standard Revised Version here and in 1 Samuel 17:45 ("Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin"). See ARMOR, sec. I, 4, (3). Gorget, though so rarely used in Scripture and now displaced in our revised versions, occurs not infrequently and in various senses in English literature. In the meaning of "a piece of armor for the gorge or throat" which seems to have been in the mind of King James's translators, it is found in early English writers and down to recent times. Spenser has it in Faerie Queene, IV, iii, 12:
"His weasand-pipe it through his gorget cleft";
Scott, Marmion, V, ii:
"Their brigantines and gorgets light";
and Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, III, 47: "The gorget gave way and the sword entered his throat."
T. Nicol.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
1. (
n.) A piece of armor, whether of chain mail or of plate, defending the throat and upper part of the breast, and forming a part of the double breastplate of the 14th century.
2. (n.) A piece of plate armor covering the same parts and worn over the buff coat in the 17th century, and without other steel armor.
3. (n.) A small ornamental plate, usually crescent-shaped, and of gilded copper, formerly hung around the neck of officers in full uniform in some modern armies.
4. (n.) A ruff worn by women.
5. (n.) A cutting instrument used in lithotomy.
6. (n.) A grooved instrument used in performing various operations; -- called also blunt gorget.
7. (n.) A crescent-shaped, colored patch on the neck of a bird or mammal.
Strong's Hebrew
2833. choshen -- breastpiece, sacred pouch... root probably meaning to contain or sparkle; perhaps a pocket (as holding the Urim
and Thummim), or rich (as containing gems), used only of the
gorget of the
... /hebrew/2833.htm - 6k
