A Cumbersome Coat of Armor

Suits of armor were worn by soldiers in the Middle Ages as protection against the slings and arrows of battle.

But could those clanking suits have been more cumbersome (see definition and hear pronunciation below) than helpful?

In recent years, scientists have concluded that the weight of interlocking metal plates would likely have caused the soldier wearing armor to use about twice as much energy as normal.

That’s not surprising since these suits of armor could weigh up to 110 pounds each!

Though armor may have shielded soldiers from lethal weapons of the era, exhaustion may have proved to be almost as formidable a foe.

Cool word vocabulary question of the day: How do you think it would have felt to wear roughly 100 pounds of cumbersome armor?

Cumbersome: Difficult to use because of its size or bulk; unwieldy.

Click here to hear a pronunciation of cumbersome.

https://coolwordclub.com/wp-content/uploads/cumbersome.mp3