BULWARK

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bulwark mean? 

• BULWARK (noun)
  The noun BULWARK has 3 senses:

1. an embankment built around a space for defensive purposes

2. a fencelike structure around a deck (usually plural)

3. a protective structure of stone or concrete; extends from shore into the water to prevent a beach from washing away

  Familiarity information: BULWARK used as a noun is uncommon.

• BULWARK (verb)
  The verb BULWARK has 1 sense:

1. defend with a bulwark

  Familiarity information: BULWARK used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BULWARK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An embankment built around a space for defensive purposes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

bulwark; rampart; wall

Context example:

they blew the trumpet and the walls came tumbling down

Hypernyms ("bulwark" is a kind of...):

embankment (a long artificial mound of stone or earth; built to hold back water or to support a road or as protection)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bulwark"):

bailey (the outer defensive wall that surrounds the outer courtyard of a castle)

battlement; crenelation; crenellation (a rampart built around the top of a castle with regular gaps for firing arrows or guns)

earthwork (an earthen rampart)

fraise (sloping or horizontal rampart of pointed stakes)

merlon (a solid section between two crenels in a crenelated battlement)

Instance hyponyms:

Antonine Wall (a fortification 37 miles long across the narrowest part of southern Scotland (between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde); built in 140 to mark the frontier of the Roman province of Britain)

Chinese Wall; Great Wall; Great Wall of China (a fortification 1,500 miles long built across northern China in the 3rd century BC; it averages 6 meters in width)

Holonyms ("bulwark" is a part of...):

fortification; munition (defensive structure consisting of walls or mounds built around a stronghold to strengthen it)

Derivation:

bulwark (defend with a bulwark)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A fencelike structure around a deck (usually plural)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("bulwark" is a kind of...):

barrier (a structure or object that impedes free movement)

Holonyms ("bulwark" is a part of...):

ship (a vessel that carries passengers or freight)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A protective structure of stone or concrete; extends from shore into the water to prevent a beach from washing away

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

breakwater; bulwark; groin; groyne; jetty; mole; seawall

Hypernyms ("bulwark" is a kind of...):

barrier (a structure or object that impedes free movement)

Derivation:

bulwark (defend with a bulwark)

• BULWARK (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Defend with a bulwark

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Hypernyms (to "bulwark" is one way to...):

defend (be on the defensive; act against an attack)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

bulwark (a protective structure of stone or concrete; extends from shore into the water to prevent a beach from washing away)

bulwark (an embankment built around a space for defensive purposes)

 Context examples 

“I prythee that you will pardon me,” said the knight, clutching his way along the bulwark.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Maud had sunk down upon the deck and was, I knew, lying motionless, her body in the shadow of the bulwark.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Both of these expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her intention of bringing before a “British Judy”—meaning, it was supposed, the bulwark of our national liberties.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the HISPANIOLA struck, staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a blow, canted over to the port side till the deck stood at an angle of forty-five degrees and about a puncheon of water splashed into the scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between the deck and bulwark.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

That these were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom, worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whose honour had been the reward of their virtue, from which their posterity were never once known to degenerate.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles through the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at bay—the impenetrable weald, for sixty years the bulwark of Britain.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The cog lay lower in the water and the waves splashed freely over the weather bulwark.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He looked upon it for a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried the point upon his hand, and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled back again into his old place against the bulwark.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)