embank

American  

[em-bangk] / ɛmˈbæŋk /

verb (used with object)

1. to enclose or protect with an embankment.

---

embank British  

/ ɪmˈbæŋk /

verb

1. (tr) to protect, enclose, or confine (a waterway, road, etc) with an embankment

---

Other Word Forms

• unembanked
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of embank

First recorded in 1640–50; em- ¹ + bank ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

embank

Exhausted, he still made light of his achievement––climbing through day and night to arrive before the snow should embank around him.

From The Eye of Dread by Erskine, Payne

If you were to embank Lincolnshire now,—more stoutly against the sea? or strip the peat of Solway, or plant Plinlimmon moors with larch—then, in due hour of year, some amateur reaping and threshing?

From Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy by Ruskin, John

"Is he empowered to pull down churches that he may use the stones to embank his drains?"

From The MS. in a Red Box by Hamilton, John Arthur

They excavated a space, to the depth of three or four feet, and used the earth they threw out to embank the walls raised upon the edge of the excavation.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861 by Various

To raise a mound or dike about; to inclose, defend, or fortify with a bank; to embank.

From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah