2 June 2017
glacis
[gley-sis, glas-is]
noun, plural glacis [gley-seez, -siz, glas-eez, -iz] (Show IPA), glacises.
1. a gentle slope.
2. Fortification. a bank of earth in front of the counterscarp or covered way of a fort, having an easy slope toward the field or open country.
Origin of glacis
Middle French
1665-1675; Middle French; akin to Old French glacier to slide; compare Latin glaciāre to make into ice; see glacé
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for glacis
Historical Examples
We have two mitrailleuses above the terre-plein to sweep at once the moat and the glacis.
History of the Commune of 1871
P. Lissagary
In six days they completed the parapet, with a glacis on the opposite side.
The Battle of New Orleans
Zachary F. Smith
I found them drawn off from the glacis a few hundred yards; but, oh!
Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade
William Surtees
They crossed the street and went down the glacis of the cobblestoned wharf.
Edith and John
Franklin S. Farquhar
Neither ditch nor glacis exist on the eastern face, where the rapids of the Nile render them unnecessary.
A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. II (of 2)
Georges Perrot
There was the sound of a gentle chuckle from the glacis where Learoyd lay.
Soldiers Three
Rudyard Kipling
Gourgues was now on the glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards were escaping on that side.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864
Various
The masonry was concealed from view by the ditch and glacis.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 6
Various
Its bastions, ramparts, and glacis are a marvel of engineering.
French and English
Evelyn Everett-Green
The storm passed over, covering the glacis with snow and sleet.
Beethoven: the Man and the Artist
Ludwig van Beethoven
Anagram
gal sic
Today’s quote
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
– Joseph Joubert
On this day
2 June 1951 – birth of Gilbert Baker, American artist and gay rights activist, who designed the ‘rainbow flag’ in 1978 which came to symbolise the gay rights movement. Died 31 March 2017.
2 June 1953 – Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, England.
2 June 1965 – the first contingent of Australian combat troops arrives in Saigon to assist the American military in the Vietnam War.
2 June 1966 – The ‘Surveyor 1’ space probe lands on the moon. It is the first US space probe to do so. The Soviet Union had successfully landed a space probe, the Lunix 9, on the moon 5 months earlier, on 3 February 1966.