breastwork
(ˈbrɛstwɜːk)
1. a. Fortif. A fieldwork (usually rough and temporary) thrown up a few feet in height for defence against an enemy; a parapet.
| 1642 Relat. Action bef. Cyrencester 3 Gardens..divided by many low dry stone walls, as good as Breast workes. 1645 R. Symonds Diary Civ. War (1859) 232 At Worcester Prince Maurice has made without the ditch..a low breast⁓work, and a stockado without. 1693 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) III. 152 The English made a breastwork of the dead, to cover them in the time of action. 1809 W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 98 The mud breastworks had long been levelled with the earth. 1839 Thirlwall Greece II. 346 Closing their wicker shields, and fixing them in the ground, so as to form a kind of breastwork before them. 1861 Smiles Engineers II. 236 The Hythe Military Canal..protected by a breastwork on the land side. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1828 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 230 Behind the outmost breastwork of gentility. 1821 De Quincey Confess. Wks. I. 103 This watery breastwork, a perpendicular wall of water carrying itself as true as if controlled by a mason's plumb-line. |
2. In various technical uses: a. Naut. ‘A sort of balustrade of rails, mouldings, or stanchions which terminates the quarter-deck and poop at the fore ends’ (Smyth Sailor's Word-bk.); see also quot. 1870. b. Arch. The parapet of a building. c. = breasting 2.
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Breastwork..frequently decorated with sculpture. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 101 The breast-work..serves to make a separation from the main-deck. 1870 Daily News 27 Sept., Having the space occupied by the turrets, funnel, hatch-ways, &c., raised seven or eight feet above the low deck. The armoured sides of this superstructure Mr. Reed calls the ‘breastwork’. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts II. 849 A good example of the form of iron buckets employed in the breast wheel..is shown in fig. 1178: a. shrouding..e. breastwork. |
3. The brickwork or masonry forming the breast of a fire-place.
| 1806 Massachusetts Spy 23 July (Th.), On the breastwork over the fireplace was the distinct impression of a bloody hand. 1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. §79 The fire-places to have each a strong iron chimney-bar (bar for supporting the breast-work, or front side of the flues). |