• (RP) IPA: /ˈbʌk.lə/
• (GA) IPA: /ˈbʌk.lɚ/

buckler (plural bucklers)

1. One who buckle#English|buckles something.
   • 1986, Press Summary - Illinois Information Service (page 6724)

     Bucklers will be assigned to buckle up drivers in the morning and make sure they stay buckled up.

2. A kind of shield, of various shapes and sizes, worn on one of the arms (usually the left) for protecting the front of the body. In the sword and buckler play of the Middle Ages in England, the buckler was a small shield, used, not to cover the body, but to stop or parry blows.
   • 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene IV, line 166.

     I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw -- ecce signum!

3. (obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum. In modern usage, a smaller variety of shield is usually implied by this term.
4. (zoology) One of the large, bony, external plates found on many ganoid fishes.
5. (zoology) The anterior segment of the shell of a trilobites.
6. (nautical) A block of wood or plate of iron made to fit a hawse hole, or the circular opening in a half-port, to prevent water from entering when the vessel pitches.

• French: bouclier, targe
• German: Faustschild, Tartsche
• Italian: brocchiero
• Portuguese: broquel
• Spanish: escudo, rodela

buckler (bucklers, present participle bucklering; past and past participle bucklered)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To shield; to defend.
   • c. 1591–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene iii]:

     Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right, / Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?

1. Surname