Ordinary (heraldry)

There are also some geometric charges known as subordinaries, which have been given lesser status by some heraldic writers, though most have been in use as long as the traditional ordinaries.

[1] In his Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), Arthur Charles Fox-Davies asserted that the terms are likely inventions of heraldic writers and not of heralds,[2] arguing the "utter absurdity of the necessity for any [such] classification at all," and stating that the ordinaries and sub-ordinaries are, in his mind, "no more than first charges.

Nowadays cottising is used not just for bends but for practically all the ordinaries (and occasionally collections of charges), and consists in placing the ordinary between two diminutive versions of itself (and occasionally other things).

Ordinaries very occasionally get cottised by things shaped quite differently from their diminutives—like demi maple leaves.

Occasionally a collection of charges aligned as if on an ordinary—in bend, etc.—is accompanied by cotticing.

Ordinaries
Ordinaries
a canton —Gules; on a bend or two cinquefoils azure, on a sinister canton argent a cross crosslet fitchy issuing out of a crescent of the first; a bordure engrailed or for difference—Cook, Scotland
a bend cottised —Per bend azure and gules, a bend nebuly argent cottised rayonny or—Munk, Canada (flag)
a chevron cottised — Per chevron argent and or, a chevron invected sable, plain cotised vert, between two martlets in chief of the third [sable] and a trefoil slipped in base of the fourth [vert]—Lawson, England