sunk fence

noun

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

sunk fence

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of sunk fence¹

First recorded in 1755–65

Example Sentences

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

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It was semicircular in shape, with a stone balustrade, and hung some fifteen feet above a terraced walk which ran below it, and was separated from the chase by a low sunk fence.

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Ha-ha, Hawhaw, haw-haw′, n. a sunk fence, or a ditch not seen till close upon it.

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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.

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The white figure stood on the little bridge which led over the sunk fence into the meadow.

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