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Outwork   Listen
noun
Outwork  n.  (Fort.) A minor defense constructed beyond the main body of a work, as a ravelin, lunette, hornwork, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Outwork" Quotes from Famous Books



... Netherlands; Bonaparte had at least formed the conception that an Italian State was possible, and he intended to convert either Austrian Lombardy itself, or some other portion of Northern Italy, into a Republic, serving as a military outwork ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... glacis, casemate[obs3]; vallation[obs3], vanfos[obs3]. buttress, abutment; shore &c. (support) 215. breastwork, banquette, curtain, mantlet[obs3], bastion, redan[obs3], ravelin[obs3]; vauntmure[obs3]; advance work, horn work, outwork; barbacan[obs3], barbican; redoubt; fort-elage[Fr], fort-alice; lines. loophole, machicolation[obs3]; sally port. hold, stronghold, fastness; asylum &c. (refuge) 666; keep, donjon, dungeon, fortress, citadel, capitol, castle; tower of strength, tower of strength; fort, barracoon[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... on the morning of the 15th of April the besiegers made a furious attack on the western outwork of Montjuich, having ascertained that it was defended only by a party of one of the newly raised Spanish regiments. They captured the post without difficulty, the Spaniards flying at the first assault, but on the inner ramparts they were met by Donegal and his ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... under a shadow, and had been sent away to retrieve his reputation for courage. He came to Montenegro to earn a decoration, and begged the Prince to let him go with the Montenegrin battalion. At the foot of each ridge was an outwork which had first to be taken by assault, from across the open, and which was taken in the early twilight, the Turks seeking refuge in the redoubt above. The Montenegrin force reversed the works they had taken, and a desultory rifle fire went on till it was too dark to see the sights of the rifles. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all and renders them all valuable. The law forbids you to revenge; when it ties up the hands of some, it ought to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... and seventy feet. Their highest parts are covered with verdure, and nearly seventeen hundred different varieties of plants have been found on the range. These hills stand as one of Nature's bulwarks, an outwork of the mountain-region of Wales, dividing an upland from a lowland district, each furnishing totally different characteristics. They were the boundary between the Romans and the Britons, and their summits present some remarkable remains of ancient fortifications. The Worcestershire ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... blossom, birds singing, and the clucking of partridges. At one place where the old trees echoed the shouts of country children at their sports, there rose above the summits a bold round tower, which on nearer approach we found to be an outwork of the fortification of a venerable convent called Dair Hhanna, which in comparatively recent times had been converted into a castle, but convent, castle, and tower are now become a ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... civilization remained grimly trenched in its own exuvia. The old terrifying girdle of fire around the hunter's camp was not more deterring to curious night prowlers than this coarse and accidental outwork. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... moved with a number of hands against the bishops; which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I look upon episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, if it be taken by this assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once revealed, 'That we must deny them nothing, when they ask it thus in troops,' we may, in the next place, have ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... upon being competitive in world markets. We must continue to expand America's exports. A successful Uruguay Round of world trade negotiations will create more real jobs, and more real growth, for all nations. You and I know that if the playing field is level, America's workers and farmers can outwork and outproduce ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... power, of whose vicinity this solitary family were constantly reminded by the outline of Lisnavoura, that lonely hillhaunt of the "Good people," as the fairies are called euphemistically, whose strangely dome-like summit rose not half a mile away, looking like an outwork of the long line of ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... mound probably represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Rassam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens. These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... British garrisons in San Domingo. But, when further reinforcements from England reached Mole St. Nicholas, a force detached thence under Major-General Whyte made a dash upon Port-au-Prince. Vigorously handled, and under cover of a violent thunderstorm, the landing parties carried an important outwork in handsome style, and thus assured the surrender of the whole place. The spoils were 101 cannon and 32 ships, with cargoes worth about half a million sterling (4th June 1794). This brilliant success cost the assailants ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... assault, and on February 8th the important outwork on Muselim Hill was taken by an impulsive bayonet charge. The city was not captured, however, until April 23d, when an entire day's ceaseless fighting ended in the yielding of the garrison, the climax ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... the Provinces, was in many respects a war of posts. Towards the north Carrickfergus continued the outwork till captured by Neil O'Neil, when Downpatrick and Dundalk became the northern barriers. The latter town, which seems to have been strengthened after Bruce's defeat, was repeatedly attacked by Neil O'Neil, and at last entered into conditions, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... It was deemed impossible to defend Les Tourelles thus dismantled. Those towers which would once have arrested an army's progress for a whole month were now useless against cannon. In front of La Belle Croix the townsfolk erected a rampart of earth and wood. Beyond this outwork two arches of the bridge were cut and replaced by a movable platform. And when this was done, the fort of Les Tourelles was abandoned to the English with no great regret. The latter set up a rampart of earth and faggots on the bridge, breaking ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... cook got 8 pounds a year, the housemaid 7 pounds, and the nursemaid 6 pounds, paid half-yearly, but the summer half-year was much better paid than the winter, because there was the outwork in the fields, weeding and hoeing turnips and potatoes, and haymaking. The winter work in the house was heavier on account of the fires and the grate cleaning, but the wages were less. My mother gave the top wages in the district, and was considerate to her maids, but I blush yet to think ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... and outwork, and come to the interior of the citadel, it may be said that great writers, although they must ever remain shining objects of regard to us, are not exempted from ordinary limitations and conditions. They are cabined, cribbed, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... tossed the fairy green globes into the rich yellow bowl of earthenware at her side, with the quick ease of those veined, old hands that outwork the young ones, and her guest watched her in silence for a few minutes, hypnotised, almost, by the steady pit-pat of the little ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him with great interest. The jam was apparently locked hard and fast against a clump of piles driven about in the centre of the stream. These had evidently been planted as the extreme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men working there could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the drive to which they could lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the open channel to the left. That was the theory. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... the Wereszyca. This line was stormed late in the evening and partly in the early morning hours of the 20th of June. The German corps, which on this day had been joined by the German Emperor, stormed the hostile positions of Stawki as far as the Bulawa outwork. Since the morning hours of the 20th of June the enemy, who in places had already withdrawn in the night, was in full retreat toward the east along the whole front. The pursuit was at once undertaken. On the evening of the same day Royal and Imperial troops stood close before ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... outlying island or coast-fortress, not far off, else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word frontier has the meaning, as the Shakespeare Lexicon says, of 'an outwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken figuratively, tend to ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... a duty in the case. You ought to spare your own property from pain." (Rosa laughs softly.) "Of course you are right. You are always right. How could such a beautiful being be wrong!" The artful rogue slips his arm about her waist at this, and, after a feeble struggle, he is permitted to hold this outwork unprotested. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... itself, but is observed with that jealous circumspection which considers even suspicion as a stain upon its purity. No matter how intense affection in a virtuous bosom may be, yet no decorum of life is violated by it, no outwork even of the minor morals surrendered, nor is any act or expression suffered to appear that might take away from the exquisite feeling of what is morally essential to female modesty. For this reason, therefore, it was that our heroine, though anxious to meet Osborne again, could ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... mystical guise. The pageant was so well managed that the Lady of the Floating Island, having performed her voyage with much picturesque effect, landed at Mortimer's Tower with her two attendants, just as Elizabeth presented herself before that outwork. The stranger then in a well-penned speech announced herself as that famous Lady of the Lake renowned in the stories of King Arthur, who had nursed the youth of the redoubted Sir Lancelot, and whose beauty had proved too powerful both for the wisdom and the spells of the mighty Merlin. Since ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... provisions became so scarce that a famine was evidently near at hand. Still hopes were entertained of being able to hold out, at least until the corn between the town and the farthest batteries, which was already in full ear, could be reaped; but before that could be done the enemy had carried the last outwork, and had appropriated the whole harvest to their use. At last the neighboring and confederate town of Malines fell into the enemy's hands, and with its fall vanished the only remaining hope of getting supplies from Brabant. As there was, therefore, no ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... they stood and beheld it, the Sage spake: "Lo ye, my children, the castle and its outwork, and its dyke that wardeth the land of the Well at the World's End. Now from to-morrow, when we enter into the great sea of the rock molten in the ancient earth-fires, there is no least peril of pursuit for ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... the English men-at-arms, and as many French, were now posted in the outwork at the head of the drawbridge under the command of Jean Bouvard. Sir Eustace placed himself with his squire on the wall above the gate, and four men were stationed at the chains of the drawbridge in readiness to hoist it should the order be given. The English archers were on the ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... insisting much on his extraordinary talents both military and civil as a leader in popular tumults. The witnesses deposed with tolerable consistency to his having tampered with them for purposes connected with some design upon Harlech castle. The capture of one outwork of Harlech was established. And at length the prisoner was called on ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... Lat. castella), the word, sometimes also written castillet, used in France for a building designed for the defence of an outwork or gate, sometimes of great strength or size, but distinguished from the chateau, or castle proper, in being purely defensive and not residential. In Paris, before the Revolution, this word was applied ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... conscience, then to coerce men is clearly wrong. The only true line of approach is by patience to reach down to that divine seed, to appeal to what is best, because it is what is strongest in man. The Quaker testimony against war is no isolated outwork of their position: it forms part of ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... drove out the besiegers from the projecting angles of the counterscarp, which they had kept possession of for eight days. They twice repulsed seven thousand men who attacked their covered way and an outwork; at the third attack they lost an angle of the outwork; but remained ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... next morning the men were in high spirits again. Everyone seemed to be posted in the day's work ahead. The French had thrown up an outwork on the landward end of the ridge; an engineer had climbed Rattlesnake Mountain at daybreak and conned it through his glass, and had brought down his report two hours ago. The white-coats had been working like niggers, helped by some reinforcements which had come in overnight—Levis ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... be straightforward work to attack the outwork," he said, "but that once won, I see not how we are to proceed against the castle itself. The machines that the earl has will scarcely hurl stones strong enough even to knock the mortar from the walls. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... surrounded by a fausse brayze and a wet ditch, whilst the height of the citadel covered the interior from the commanding fire of the hills from the north, rendering it nugatory. In addition to this, screen walls had been built before the gates, the ditch was filled with water, and unfordable, and an outwork built on the right bank of the river so as to command the ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... marshal said. "You see that the walls are 200 feet long, they are 12 feet in height, with a tower at the end and one over the gateway in the centre six feet high. There is a drawbridge defended by an outwork of palisades six feet high. The moat will be a dry one, seeing that we have no means of filling it with water, but it will be supposed to be full, and must be crossed on planks or bridges. Two small towers on wheels will be provided, which may be run up to the edge of the moat, and ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Outwork" :   defence



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