Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See epaulment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Fort.) A side work, made of gabions, fascines, or bags, filled with earth, or of earth heaped up, to afford cover from the flanking fire of an enemy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A barricade of heaped earth for protection from gunfire.
  • noun ballet A position in which one shoulder is thrust forward and the other back, and the torso turned at a right angle to the supporting leg.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French épaulement, from épaule + -ment

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Examples

  • In the course of his harangue he happened to mention the word epaulement, upon which the testy gentleman asked the meaning, of that term.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random 2004

  • In the course of his harangue he happened to mention the word epaulement, upon which the testy gentleman asked the meaning, of that term.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random Tobias George Smollett 1746

  • Or maybe it Michael Jackson stamping his Nijinsky onto Thriller -- Michael's American Schereazade -- where he retrofitted the 'epaulement, releve' and grand plie 'into the Moonwalk's reverse ballet, on Motown 25.

    Barry Michael Cooper: Michael Jackson Agonistes: An American Pop'era In Three Acts 2009

  • In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in the Rue

    Les Miserables 2008

  • To this interrogation the officer made no immediate reply, but rang the bell, and called for the bill, which being brought, he threw down his proportion of the reckoning, and, telling the company he would show them an epaulement when his majesty should think fit to entrust him with the command of our army abroad, strutted away with great dignity.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random 2004

  • I know, for putting a stop to his loquacity, is to lay hold of some incongruity he has uttered, and demand an explanation; or ask the meaning of some difficult term that he knows by name; this method will effectually put him to silence, if not to flight, as it happened when I inquired about an epaulement.

    The Adventures of Roderick Random 2004

  • The engineers had a simple solution: from the eastern end of the French part of the first parallel troops would move out and construct part of the second as close to the advanced British redoubts as safety permitted, and then they would erect a strong epaulement or “shoulder.”

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • Once the advanced redoubts had been silenced or seized, the second parallel could be extended from the epaulement to the river bank.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • If full advantage were taken of a slight rise of ground, execution of this design would reduce distance to the nearer British earthwork from 650 yards to approximately 330, perhaps even to 300 or less, without exposing the epaulement to intolerable fire.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

  • If full advantage were taken of a slight rise of ground, execution of this design would reduce distance to the nearer British earthwork from 650 yards to approximately 330, perhaps even to 300 or less, without exposing the epaulement to intolerable fire.

    Washington Richard Harwell 1968

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