remblai

/ rɑ̃blɛ /

noun

1. earth used for an embankment or rampart

Word History and Origins

Origin of remblai¹

C18: from French, from remblayer to embank, from emblayer to pile up

Example Sentences

The forts described in the text-books, as might be expected, were designed with great ingenuity, with bastioned or demi-bastioned fronts, star traces, and so forth, and in the same books intricate calculations were entered into to balance the remblai and d�blai, that is, the amount of earth in the parapets with that excavated from the ditches.

From Project Gutenberg

These features run parallel with our line right down to the road in the valley, and though they are not features of great tactical importance, like the patch of summit above, where the craters are, or like the windmill at Pozières, they were the last things seen by many brave Irish and Englishmen, and cannot be passed lightly by. 37The features are a lane, fifty or sixty yards in front of our front trench, and a remblai or lynchet fifty or sixty yards in front of the lane.

From Project Gutenberg

Then there is the lynchet or remblai, like a steep cliff, from three to twelve feet high, hardly to be noticed from above until the traveller is upon it.

From Project Gutenberg

A remblai, also topped with hawthorn, lies a little to the north of this road.

From Project Gutenberg