machicolation

Noun

machicolation (countable and uncountable, plural machicolations)

1. An opening between corbels that support a projecting parapet, or in the floor of a gallery or the roof of a portal, of a fortified building from which missiles can be shot or heated items dropped upon assailants attacking the base of the walls.
   • Leibourn Caſtle, Kent. A proſpect of the front of that caſtle. Over the gate, we are told, was a machicolation or contrivance, from whence, in caſe of a ſudden attack, great ſtones, boiling water, or melted lead, might be thrown down upon the aſſailants.1773 October, “III. The Antiquities of England and Wales: Being a Collection of Views of the Most Remarkable Ruins and Antient Buildings, Accurately Drawn on the Spot. […] By Francis Grose, Esq....
   • There is another feature of this proverbial place which seems to have contributed to the phrase's significance—that is, the Blarney stone. [...] There is one stone, on the very battlement of the castle, forming the outward surface, the machicolation, or opening, through which stones, hot water...1851 October, William Dowe, “A Gossip about Blarney”, in Sartain’s Union Magazine of Literature and Art, volume IX, number 4, Philadelphia, Pa.: [John Sartain], →OCLC, page 271

   Synonyms:

   machicoulis

2. A projecting parapet with a series of such openings.
   • The main walls were carried to the top of the fourth story, where a capacious machicolation enclosed the tower, on which there is a parapet wall of great thickness, with arches: this was to protect the persons employed over the machicolations.1816, [James Sargant Storer], “Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire”, in The Antiquarian Itinerary, Comprising Specimens of Architecture, Monastic, Castellated, and Domestic; […], volume VI, London...
   • In the Contrada della Pace there remains a very bold fragment of a castle tower. It is built of very roughly-jointed stone, and is perfectly plain till near the top, where it has a bold machicolation with tall square angle-turrets, the whole battlemented with a forked battlement.1874, George Edmund Street, chapter V, in Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 75