bulwark
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Etymology
From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) + work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Swedish bålverk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.
Pronunciation
Noun
bulwark (plural bulwarks)
- A defensive wall or rampart.
- c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
- Let thouſands die, their ſlaughtered Carkaſſes
Shal ſerue for walles and bulwarkes to the reſt:
- A defense or safeguard.
- 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:
- The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of the island.
- A breakwater.
- (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 11:
- Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.
- (figurative) Any means of defence or security.
- The party stalwarts constitute the bulwark that ensures the president's term of office.
Translations
defensive wall or rampart
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defense or safeguard
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breakwater — see breakwater
nautical: planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale
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Verb
bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)
- (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
- (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.
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