hornwork en · NOUN
Etymology
From horn + work.
Meanings
-
A type of fortification consisting of a pair of demi-bastions with a curtain wall connecting them and with two long sides directed upon the faces of the bastions, or ravelins of the inner fortifications, so as to be defended by them.
I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment,——that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued Trim, your Honour might sit out of doors, and give me the nography—(Call it ichnography, quoth my uncle,)——of the town or citadel, your Honour was pleased to sit down before,—and I will be shot by your Honour upon the glacis of it, if I did not fortify it to your Honour’s mind.
1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| hornworks | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Relateds
Translations (1)
fi sarvilinna (type of fortification)