plastron

I bought here a wedding dress perhaps twenty or thirty years old … a sequin plastron to be worn over the womb as a feminine equivalent to a cod-piece, and a gauze veil embroidered in purple and gold.

"Why, compared to what thou wast, Hugo, thou art as a deerskin coat to a steel plastron.-- Art thou not in love, man? Answer me!" "Something like, I fear me, beau sire,” replied the squire.

The plastron of a diving beetle is not directly a source of oxygen, but acts as a gill, acquiring oxygen from the surrounding water.