Adjacent Words

earthwork definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: an earthen rampart

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1633 1. an embankment or other construction made of earth; especially one used as a field fortification 2. the operations connected with excavations and embankments of earth 3. a work of art consisting of a portion of land modified by an artist

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 an artificial bank of earth in fortification or road-building etc. 2 the process of excavating soil in civil engineering work.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Earthwork Earth"work`, n. 1. (Mil.) Any construction, whether a temporary breastwork or permanent fortification, for attack or defense, the material of which is chiefly earth. 2. (Engin.) (a) The operation connected with excavations and embankments of earth in preparing foundations of buildings, in constructing canals, railroads, etc. (b) An embankment or construction made of earth.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(earthworks) Earthworks are large structures of earth that have been built for defence, especially ones which were built a very long time ago. N-COUNT: usu pl

Moby Thesaurus

abatis, advanced work, arch dam, backstop, balistraria, bamboo curtain, bank, banquette, bar, barbed-wire entanglement, barbican, barrage, barricade, barrier, bartizan, bastion, battlement, bear-trap dam, beaver dam, boom, breakwater, breastwork, brick wall, buffer, bulkhead, bulwark, casemate, cheval-de-frise, circumvallation, cofferdam, contravallation, counterscarp, curtain, dam, defense, demibastion, dike, ditch, drawbridge, embankment, enclosure, entanglement, escarp, escarpment, fence, fieldwork, fortalice, fortification, gate, glacis, gravity dam, groin, hydraulic-fill dam, iron curtain, jam, jetty, leaping weir, levee, logjam, loophole, lunette, machicolation, mantelet, merlon, milldam, moat, mole, mound, outwork, palisade, parados, parapet, portcullis, postern gate, rampart, ravelin, redan, redoubt, roadblock, rock-fill dam, sally port, scarp, sconce, seawall, shutter dam, stockade, stone wall, tenaille, vallation, vallum, wall, weir, wicket dam, work