Argent

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Argent

In heraldry

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
, argent is the tincture

Tincture (heraldry)

In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to blazon a coat of arms....
of silver

Silver (color)

Silver is the metallic Tints and shades resembling gray, closest to that of polished silver.The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine....
, and belongs to the class of light tinctures, called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white

White

White is a color, the Color vision#Physiology of color perception which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in near equal amount and with high brightness compared to the surroundings....
and usually considered interchangeable with it. In engravings and line drawings, regions to be tinctured argent are either left blank

Blank

There are a number of uses for the word blank:*...
, or may be indicated with the abbreviation ar. in them.

The name derives from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
argentum, which derives from the Greek ???????, translated as silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
or white metal

Metal

In chemistry, a metal is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions , and form metallic bonds between other metal atoms and ionic bonds between nonmetal atoms....
.

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Encyclopedia

In heraldry
Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
, argent is the tincture
Tincture (heraldry)

In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to blazon a coat of arms....
of silver
Silver (color)

Silver is the metallic Tints and shades resembling gray, closest to that of polished silver.The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine....
, and belongs to the class of light tinctures, called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white
White

White is a color, the Color vision#Physiology of color perception which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in near equal amount and with high brightness compared to the surroundings....
and usually considered interchangeable with it. In engravings and line drawings, regions to be tinctured argent are either left blank
Blank

There are a number of uses for the word blank:*...
, or may be indicated with the abbreviation ar. in them.

The name derives from Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
argentum, which derives from the Greek ???????, translated as silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
or white metal
Metal

In chemistry, a metal is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions , and form metallic bonds between other metal atoms and ionic bonds between nonmetal atoms....
. The word argent had the same meaning in Old French blazon
Blazon

In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of, most often, a coat of arms or flag, which enables a person to construct or reconstruct the appropriate image....
, from which it passed into the English language.

In some historical depictions of coats of arms
Coat of arms

A coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways....
, a kind of silver leaf was applied to those parts of the device that were argent. Over time, the silver content of these depictions has tarnish
Tarnish

Tarnish is a layer of corrosion that forms over copper, brass, silver, aluminum, and other semi-reactive metals as they undergo oxidation. It is analogous to rust, but with a slower rate of occurrence....
ed and darkened. As a result, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish regions that were intended as argent from those that were sable
Sable (heraldry)

In heraldry, sable is the tincture black, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures, called "colours". In engravings and line drawings, it is sometimes depicted as a region of crossed horizontal and vertical lines or else marked with sa. as an abbreviation....
. The result is a false impression that the rule of tincture
Rule of tincture

The first rule of heraldry is the rule of tincture: metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour . This means that Or and argent may not be placed against each other; neither may any of the Tincture or paints be placed against another colour....
has been violated in cases where argent, applied next to a dark colour, now appears to be sable next to a dark colour from tarnishing.

Argent and white
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies argued extensively in his book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopaedia of Armory that, though extremely rare, the colour white existed as an independent tincture in heraldry separate from argent. He bases this in part on the "white label
Label (heraldry)

In heraldry, a label is a Charge closely resembling the strap with pendants which, from the saddle, crossed the horse's chest.It is the oldest mark of difference, but sometimes borne as a charge....
s" used to difference the arms of members of the British Royal Family
British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in his or her Commonwealth realm#The Crown in the Commonwealth realmss, thus sometimes at variance with official national terms for the family....
. However, it has been argued that these could be regarded as "white labels proper", thus rendering white not a heraldic tincture.

White does seem to be regarded as a different tincture from argent in Portuguese heraldry
Portuguese heraldry

Portuguese heraldry has been in use at least since the 12th century. The national Portuguese coat of arms has its roots in a coat of arms made in 1143....
, as evidenced by the arms of in Portugal
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
, in which the white of the fallen Moor's clothing and the knight's horse is distinguished from the argent of the distant castle, and in the arms of the Logistical and Administrative Command of the Portuguese Air Force
Portuguese Air Force

The Portuguese Air Force is the air force of Portugal. Formed on July 1, 1952, with the Aeron?utica Militar and Portuguese Naval Aviation united in a single independent Air Force, it is one of the three branches of the Portuguese Armed Forces and its origins dates back to 1912, when the military aviation began to be used in Portugal,...
.

Argent is said to represent the following:

Of jewels, the pearl
Pearl

A pearl is a hard, roundish object produced within the soft tissue of a living animal shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of mollusks, a pearl is made up of of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers....
Of heavenly bodies, the Moon
Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
Of metals, silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....

See also

Silver
Silver (color)

Silver is the metallic Tints and shades resembling gray, closest to that of polished silver.The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine....
White
White

White is a color, the Color vision#Physiology of color perception which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in near equal amount and with high brightness compared to the surroundings....