In heraldry, a blesse is a white or light-colored vertical stripe or band running down the center of a shield.
From Old French 'blesse' meaning a wound or mark, derived from Latin 'blaesus' meaning wounded or disfigured. The heraldic meaning evolved metaphorically from the idea of a distinctive mark.
Medieval heralds repurposed the word for 'wound' to describe vertical stripes on coats of arms—it's like they saw a white stripe as a honorable 'mark' on a shield that identified noble families across battlefields.
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