bulwark

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bulwark

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From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) +‎ work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Swedish bålverk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.

• (UK, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈbʊl.wək/
• (US) enPR: bo͝ol'wərk, IPA^(key): /ˈbʊl.wɚk/

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bulwark (plural bulwarks)

1. A defensive wall or rampart.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First Part , 2nd edition, part 1, London: Richard Iones, , published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

     Let thouſands die, their ſlaughtered Carkaſſes
     Shal ſerue for walles and bulwarkes to the reſt:

2. A defense or safeguard.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of the island.

3. A breakwater.
4. (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 11:

     Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.

5. (figurative) Any means of defence or security.

   The party stalwarts constitute the bulwark that ensures the president's term of office.

   • 2024 December 12, Eric Cortellessa, “Donald Trump 2024 TIME Person of the Year”, in Time‎:

     Willing to upend the nation’s postwar role as a bulwark against authoritarianism, he promises to usher in a foreign policy rooted in “America First” transactionalism.

bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)

1. (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
2. (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.