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noun

Rampart n.

That which fortifies and defends from assault; that which secures safety; a defense or bulwark.

(Fort.) A broad embankment of earth round a place, upon which the parapet is raised. It forms the substratum of every permanent fortification.

Synonyms: Bulwark; fence; security; guard. Rampart, Bulwark. These words were formerly interchanged; but in modern usage a distinction has sprung up between them. The rampart of a fortified place is the enceinte or entire main embankment or wall which surrounds it. The term bulwark is now applied to peculiarly strong outworks which project for the defense of the rampart, or main work. A single bastion is a bulwark. In using these words figuratively, rampart is properly applied to that which protects by walling out; bulwark to that which stands in the forefront of danger, to meet and repel it. Hence, we speak of a distinguished individual as the bulwark, not the rampart, of the state. This distinction, however, is often disregarded.

verb

Rampart v. t. (past & past part. ramparted; pres. part. ramparting) To surround or protect with, or as with, a rampart or ramparts. "Those grassy hills, those glittering dells, Proudly ramparted with rocks."

Rampart gun (Fort.), a cannon or large gun for use on a rampart and not as a fieldpiece.

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Etymology of 'Rampart'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rampart" Quotes from Famous Books

... that I had neglected nothing which could preserve me from the cruel destiny with which I was threatened. The serpent failed not to come at the usual hour, and went round the tree, seeking for an opportunity to devour me, but was prevented by the rampart I had made; so that he lay till day, like a cat watching in vain for a mouse that has fortunately reached a place of safety. When day appeared he retired, but I dared not to leave my fort until the ...

— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... heaven and the terrible crystal! No rampart excludes Your eye from the life to be lived In the blue solitudes. 180 Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement! Still moving with you; For, ever some new head and breast of them Thrusts into view To ...

— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... to Cuba this time I had read in our newspapers about the Spanish trocha without knowing just what a trocha was. I imagined it to be a rampart of earth and fallen trees, topped with barbed wire; a Rubicon that no one was allowed to pass, but which the insurgents apparently crossed at will with the ease of little girls leaping over a flying skipping rope. In reality it seems to be a much ...

— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where they eat and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is as cheap as iron is with you." It was not long after this startling intelligence that Balboa achieved the formidable adventure of scaling the mountain rampart of the Isthmus which divides the two mighty oceans from each other; when, armed with sword and buckler, he rushed into the waters of the Pacific, and cried out, in the true chivalrous vein, that "he claimed this unknown sea with all ...

— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... ice-clad slopes. Three craters were discovered, the youngest and highest of which was found to be thirteen thousand three hundred and fifty feet above sea level.[3] During the ascent the party nearly perished in a gale which blew their tents into tatters. The crater rampart was finally reached, however, and a number of excellent ...

— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

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