Cunette

//kjuːˈnɛt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A trench dug in a moat to allow for drainage, or as an extra obstacle for attackers.

    "Ford's Ravelin.—Completed in its ditch, ſluices, cunette, aqueducts, ſcarp, and counterſcarp walls; […]"

Example

More examples

"Ford's Ravelin.—Completed in its ditch, ſluices, cunette, aqueducts, ſcarp, and counterſcarp walls; […]"

Etymology

From French cunette (possibly also lacunette), from Italian cunetta (“cunette”), said to be from lacunetta, diminutive of lacuna (“ditch; lagoon; gap”), from Latin lacūna (“hole, pit; cavity, cleft, hollow, opening; gap, void”), from lacus (“lake”), from Proto-Italic *lakus, from Proto-Indo-European *lókus (“lake, pool”).

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