tenaille

/ tɛˈneɪl /

noun

1. fortifications a low outwork in the main ditch between two bastions

Word History and Origins

Origin of tenaille¹

C16: from French, literally: tongs, from Late Latin tenācula, pl of tenaculum

Example Sentences

My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and had it not been, that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tenaille a straight line, as a crooked one,—he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor Le Fever and his boy the whole time he smoaked it.

From Project Gutenberg

To these subjoined the nicest aids of art— Glacis and bastions, flanks and counter scarps, Horn works and moat, half moons and covert way, Trenches and mines, tenaille and battery, With guns of every size and every bore, And such a host of desperadoes there, Who to the last drop of their blood would hold it, That none but devils, I presume, can take it.

From Project Gutenberg

The tenaille is very generally found.

From Project Gutenberg

In both the parapet of the tenaille had to be kept low, so that the flanks might defend a breach at the shoulder of the opposite bastion, with artillery fire striking within 12 ft. of the base of the escarp.

From Project Gutenberg

His tenaille system consisted of redans, with salient angles of 60� or more, flanking each other at right angles; from which he gave to his system the name of “perpendicular fortification.”

From Project Gutenberg