The term armadillo was introduced in 1577 from Spanish, where it originated as a diminutive of armado, meaning “armored”. This description accurately reflects the nature of armadillos as small, armored animals. Armado derives from Latin armatus, which signifies “armed” and is the past participle of arma, translating to “weapons”. More literally, it conveys “tools of war”, as in its earliest usage, arma also referred to “tools”. Etymologically, it can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European ar, meaning “fitting”, with the concept of tools fitting things together. In addition to armadillo, arma has contributed to the formation of words like armory, armament, Armageddon, armada, army, alarm, and armoire, offering a fascinating array of cognates. According to Google NGrams, the usage of the term armadillo has remained relatively consistent since its emergence in the late eighteenth century.
