barbican
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See also: Barbican
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Old French barbacane, of uncertain origin: compare Arabic بَرْبَخ (barbaḵ, “aqueduct, sewer”), and Persian بابخانه (bâb-xâne, “gatehouse”).
Pronunciation
Noun
barbican (plural barbicans)
- A tower at the entrance to a castle or fortified town.
- 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter V, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):
- The stone part of the drawbridge with its barbican and the bartizans of the gatehouse are in good repair. […] There was a large hidden trapdoor in the floor of the barbican, which would let them into the moat after all.
- A fortress at the end of a bridge.
- An opening in the wall of a fortress through which the guns are levelled; a narrow loophole through which arrows and other missiles may be shot.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 11]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC:
- Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the high barbacans.
- A temporary wooden tower built for defensive purposes.
Synonyms
- (entryway fortification): see guardhouse
Derived terms
Translations
A tower at the entrance to a castle or fortified town
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See also
References
- Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language (1766)
- John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “barbican”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.