barbacan

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. — Ulysses, James Joyce
"He blenches not! he blenches not!" said Rebecca; "I see him now: he leads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbacan. — McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, William Holmes McGuffey
Others did fortify and rampire their walls, set up little fortresses, bastions, squared ravelins, digged trenches, cleansed countermines, fenced themselves with gabions, contrived platforms, emptied casemates, barricaded the false brays, erected the cavaliers, repaired the counterscarps, plastered the curtains, lengthened ravelins, stopped parapets, morticed barbacans, assured the portcullises, fastened the herses, sarasinesques, and cataracts, placed their sentries, and doubled their patrol. — Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais

barbican

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