battlement

From Middle English batilment, from Old French bataillement, earlier bastillement (“fortification”), from bastillier (“to fortify, to equip with battlements”), from bastille (“fortress”) (see bastion).

• (UK) IPA^(key): [ˈbætəɫmənt]

• Audio (Southern England):

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battlement (plural battlements)

1. In fortification: an indented parapet, formed by a series of rising members called cops or merlons, separated by openings called crenelles or embrasures, the soldier sheltering himself behind the merlon while he fires through the embrasure or through a loophole in the battlement.
2. Any high wall for defense.
3. (poetic) The towering roof of heaven.

• (sense, indented parapet) crenellation

• battlemented

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “battlement”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.