sunk fence

American  

noun

1. a wall or other barrier set in a ditch to divide lands without marring the landscape.

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sunk fence British  

noun

1. Also called: ha-ha.  a ditch, one side of which is made into a retaining wall so as to enclose an area of land while remaining hidden in the total landscape

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Etymology

Origin of sunk fence

First recorded in 1755–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sunk fence

Once across the lawn, I was to drop it over the sunk fence close to the drive.

From The Brother of Daphne by Yates, Dornford

His people and hers lived in the same sombre London square: their Haslemere gardens were divided only by a sunk fence.

From The Literary Sense by Nesbit, E. (Edith)

For this he had glued both eye and ear to draughty keyholes, had lain for hours under cover of prickly thistles in the sunk fence which surrounded the flower garden.

From The Nest of the Sparrowhawk by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness

And in Spring what a choir of nightingales sang in the gnarled whitethorn trees by the sunk fence, and in late summer what myriads of grasshoppers chirruped in the twilight.

From The Passionate Elopement by MacKenzie, Compton

Its garden surrounded by a sunk fence could be seen, and the figure of a lady walking in it.

From The Coryston Family A Novel by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.