Abattis

//ˈæbətəs// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative spelling of abatis. alt-of, alternative

    "He withdrew Torfrida and his men into the heart of the forest,—no hint of the place is given by the chronicler,—cut down trees, formed an abattis of trunks and branches, and awaited the enemy."

  2. 2
    a line of defense consisting of a barrier of felled or live trees with branches (sharpened or with barbed wire entwined) pointed toward the enemy wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abatis

Example

More examples

"He then covered himself with entrenchments and abattis, and was thus enabled to charge the enemy’s columns whenever they debouched from the bridge, and to beat them in detail."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.