armor

A minor but very detrimental flaw or weakness. Yeah, he's brilliant, but his violent temper has destroyed many business relationships—it's a real chink in his armor. The criminal's tendency to use his own cell phone to conduct business was the chink in the armor the police needed to put him in jail.

old-fashioned An awkward, clumsy, base, or mean person dressed in fine clothes or inhabiting a role of authority. It doesn't help our organization's appearance to have a hog in armor parading himself as our leader.

A selfless, chivalrous man who helps a woman in distress. When the police officer pulled over to help the old woman change her flat tire, she hugged him and said he was her knight in shining armor.

Fig. a special weakness that provides a means for attacking or impressing someone otherwise invulnerable. (Alludes to an opening in a suit of armor that allows a weapon to penetrate.) Jane's insecurity is the chink in her armor. The boss seems mean, but the chink in his armor is that he is easily flattered.

A vulnerable area, as in Putting things off to the last minute is the chink in Pat's armor and is bound to get her in trouble one day . This term relies on chink in the sense of "a crack or gap," a meaning dating from about 1400 and used figuratively since the mid-1600s.

A rescuer or defender, as in What this political party needs is a knight in shining armor to change its tarnished image . This metaphoric expression alludes to a medieval knight. [Mid-1900s]

A vulnerable spot, a weakness. The term alludes to the medieval knight’s armor made of mail—interlinked rings of metal jointed at various points. When a crack, or chink, developed between the links or joints, he was less protected against a spear or arrow. The noun “chink” has been used figuratively for such a fissure since the 1600s, and the current term came soon afterward. See also Achilles' heel.

A rescuer or deliverer. This term, which recalls the age of chivalry through the image of a dashing knight on horseback clad in polished armor, dates from the sixteenth century but has been in figurative use only since the mid-twentieth century. John Ciardi pointed out that the phrase has been used with two meanings: the “Mr. Right” of a young girl’s dreams, rescuing her from the humdrum with the promise of romance, and in politics, the idealistic reformer. One might add a third, the white knight of the modern-day corporation, who rescues the company from a hostile raider and averts an unwanted takeover. Quite figuratively, the poet William Rose Benét wrote, “Like a knight in glittering armor, Laughter stood up at his side” (“The Last Ally”).

A wonderful guy. Fairy tales chronicled fair maidens in distress who were rescued at the last minute from dragons and ogres by a gallant knight in gleaming armor, where-upon they all lived happily ever after. Even if a young woman didn't view herself as a princess or consider herself in desperate straits, she still imagined herself being carried off by the man of her dreams, Prince Charming, a knight in shining armor.