rampart - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from Middle French rempart (“rampart of a fort”), from Old French remparer (“to defend, fortify, inclose with a rampart”), from re- (“again”) +‎ emparer (“defend, fortify, surround, seize, take possesion of”), from Old Occitan amparer, from Vulgar Latin *anteparō (“to prepare”), from ante- +‎ parō (“to prepare”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹæm.pɑː(ɹ)t/

rampart (plural ramparts)

1. A defensive mound of earth or a wall with a broad top and usually a stone parapet; a wall-like ridge of earth, stones or debris; an embankment for defensive purpose.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 154, about Dorchester, Oxon:

     Between the southern end of the village, called Bridge End, and the River Thames runs a double row of ramparts and a ditch known as Dyke Hills.

2. A defensive structure; a protective barrier; a bulwark.
3. That which defends against intrusion from outside; a protection.
4. (usually in the plural) A steep bank of a river or gorge.

rampart (third-person singular simple present ramparts, present participle ramparting, simple past and past participle ramparted)

1. To defend with a rampart; fortify or surround with a rampart.

• ramparted

• fraise

• “rampart”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “rampart”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “rampart”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.