Word.ws English Dictionary

barbette

UK/bɑːˈbɛt/

barbette noun: a mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the parapet.

barbette: a mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the...
Image: Voytek S, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

barbette (plural barbettes)

  1. A mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the parapet.
    • Cleverly camouflaged with grey felt, which exactly matched the colour of the walls, it led upwards to a barbette, or platform, perched beside the gate.1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 276
  2. The inside fixed trunk of a warship's gun-mounting, on which the turret revolves. It contains the hoists for shells and cordite from the shell-room and magazine.
    • The belted cruiser Pamiat Azova or Remembrance of Azoff, is 377 feet long. She is an improved Dmitri Dontskoi, and carries her two 8-inch guns in sponsoned barbettes on either broadside1899, John Scott-Keltie, editor, Statesman's Year-Book 1899

Forms of barbette

pluralbarbettes

Origin of barbette

Borrowed from French barbette.

Words formed from barbette

Words that rhyme with barbette

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about barbette

What does barbette mean?
Barbette means a mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to fire over the parapet.
What part of speech is barbette?
Barbette is a noun.
How do you pronounce barbette?
Barbette is pronounced /bɑːˈbɛt/ (UK).
What is the plural of barbette?
The plural of barbette is barbettes.

Words near barbette in the dictionary

  1. Barbery
  2. Barberyn
  3. barbet
  4. barbetism
  5. barbets
  6. barbette
  7. barbettes
  8. barbexaclone
  9. Barbey
  10. Barbian
  11. Barbians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barbette (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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