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Abattis   Listen
noun
Abattis, Abatis  n.  (Fort.) A means of defense formed by felled trees, the ends of whose branches are sharpened and directed outwards, or against the enemy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abattis" Quotes from Famous Books



... rising to a height of fifty metres above the slope, is the key to the whole position. The defenses consisted of two rows of trenches, lying one over the other, with strong cover, and with wire entanglements and abattis in front of them. At daybreak began the artillery battle. This already at six o'clock in the morning resulted in the complete subduing of the Russian artillery, which, as always in the recently preceding days, held back and only very cautiously and with sparing use of ammunition ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... because the plain was favorable for cavalry evolutions. In the life of Miltiades which is usually cited as the production of Cornelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority whatever, it is said that Miltiades protected his flanks from the enemy's horse by an abatis of felled trees. While he was on the high ground he would not have required this defence, and it is not likely that the Persians would have allowed him to erect it on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... against the attacks of storms, and defended by chevaux-de-frise such as the Americans sank in the Hudson River in 1777. I ventured cautiously over the edge. A student of ancient tactics would have found there all the old defenses in coral—caltrops, and abatis, molded in dark-gray coral, battered and shot-marked. It was a dream of a sunken city wall of old Syracuse, and conjured up a vision of the hoary Archimedes upon it before the inundation, directing the destruction, by his ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... ungenerous rivalry between the groups of men who took the two redoubts is one of the most picturesque incidents of the American Revolution. If it had not been for the fact that the French detachment had paused to have the abatis cut through in regular order, they would probably have been in their redoubt before the Americans under Lafayette were in theirs; for when they were once on the height, they occupied but six minutes in making themselves masters ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow



Words linked to "Abattis" :   line of defence, line of defense



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