Variation of the field

A field with narrow piles throughout, issuing from either the dexter or sinister side of the shield, is barry pily.

[8] The arms of a Bleichröder, banker to Bismarck,[9] show chequy fimbriated (the chequers being divided by thin lines).

[15] When the shield is divided by both bendwise and bendwise-sinister lines, creating a field of lozenges coloured like a chessboard, the result is lozengy.

[18] Part of the field of the arms of the 544th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group of the United States Air Force is lozengy in perspective.

An extremely rare, possibly unique example of a field rustré - counterchanged rustres - occurs in Canadian heraldry in the arms of R.C.

Purdy Chocolates Ltd.[20] A shield that is divided quarterly and per saltire, forming eight triangular pieces, is gyronny.

This is technically a field covered with gyrons, a rare charge in the form of a wedge, shown individually in the well-known arms of Mortimer.

Thus for example the arms of Jesus College, Cambridge, which despite a blazon of seme are invariably depicted with either eight or ten crowns golde on its bordure.

In Cornish heraldry, the arms granted 1764 to a Hockin family are Per fesse wavy gules and azure a lion passant gardant or, beneath his feet a musket lying horizontally proper; and semé of fleur de lys confusedly dispersed of the third [emphasis added],[28] alluding to an incident in which the marksmanship of a Cornish young man, Thomas Hockin, caused a boatload of French coastal raiders to scatter and flee back to their ship.

[29] The 1995–2002 arms of Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia, show Vert, semee of disks or decreasing in size from base to chief.

[35] The arms of the Special Troops Battalion of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division of the United States Army has the unique field Per pale sable and gules with stylized folds sanguine, the sinister half of the field symbolizing a warrior's cape.

A field pappellony (French: papillon, 'butterfly') shows a pattern like the wings of a butterfly, though this is categorised as a fur.

[40] In English heraldry, diapering, or covering areas of flat colour with a tracery design, is not considered a variation of the field; it is not specified in blazon, being a decision of the individual artist.

A field fretty is composed of bendlets and bendlets-sinister or scarps, interleaved over one another to give the impression of a trellis.

[42] Objects can be placed in the position of the bendlets and bendlets sinister and described as fretty of, as in the arms of the Muine Bheag Town Commissioners: Party per fess or fretty of blackthorn branches leaved proper and ermine, a fess wavy azure.

Variations of the field present a particular problem concerning consistent spelling of adjectival endings in English blazons.

It is considered by some heraldic authorities as pedantry to adopt strictly correct French linguistic usage for English blazons.

E.g. Cussans (1869):[46] ... for to describe two hands as appaumées, because the word main is feminine in French, savours somewhat of pedantry.