circumvallation

American  

[ser-kuhm-va-lay-shuhn] / ˌsər kəm væˈleɪ ʃən /

noun

• circumvallations
  plural

1. the act or process of surrounding a position with a fortification, or circumvallating.

2. a fortification, especially one made of earth, surrounding an area for protection; rampart.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• circumvallations
  plural

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

circumvallation circumvallations

Colncester therefore means the camp colony, which proves that the original builders of this town erected their dwellings within the circumvallation of the original castra of Claudian.

From The Pagan's Cup by Fergus Hume

In fact, so much light is poured out of the circumvallation that the eye is partially blinded, and unable distinctly to see the details of the interior.

From Pleasures of the telescope An Illustrated Guide for Amateur Astronomers and a Popular Description of the Chief Wonders of the Heavens for General Readers by Garrett Putman Serviss

Indeed as she grew to a clear consciousness of herself and her position, it seemed to her he was not so much a circumstance as a circumvallation.

From The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

It is most certain that a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of circumvallation.

From Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by George Saintsbury

They are of two descriptions, the cliff castles, where a headland is protected by banks and dykes on the side of the mainland, and circular or oval camps crowning heights, with concentric rings of circumvallation.

From Cornwall by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

The ancient Americans knew how to protect every height and every delta formed by the junction of two rivers with redoubts, walls, parapets, fosses, and circumvallations.

From Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples by N. D'Anvers

Elsewhere the tomb, instead of developing as a tumulus or barrow, produced the effect of greatness by huge circumvallations of earth, and massive walls of stone.

From Early Bardic Literature, Ireland. by Standish O'Grady

A man naturally thinks it will go hard within such august circumvallations.

From The Pocket R.L.S., being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson

We have his works, but they are like the circumvallations of a Roman camp on the Scottish hillside.

From Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Alexander Smith

Pretty Prudence, like a beleaguered city hard bested, kept the enemy Spikeman at bay; nor did he, with all his parallels and circumvallations, make any progress.

From The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance by John Turvill Adams

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