Word.ws English Dictionary

ravelin

/ˈɹævəlɪn/

ravelin noun: a kind of outwork; a freestanding, wedge-shaped fortification used to split an attacking force as they approach a larger fortress.

Noun

ravelin (plural ravelins)

  1. A kind of outwork; a freestanding, wedge-shaped fortification used to split an attacking force as they approach a larger fortress.
    • I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment,——that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country...1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    • It is about 2,500 yards in circuit, is built of red stone, and, according to Von Orlich, is now " a bastioned quinquangle ; the ancient walls with semicircular bastions face the two streams ; the land side is quite regular, and consists of two bastions, and a half-bastion with three ravelins," and...1858, Edward Thornton, A Gazetteer of the Territories Under the Government of the East India Company and of the Native States on the Continent of India, W. H. Allen & Co., page 22

Forms of ravelin

pluralravelins

Origin of ravelin

From French ravelin, from Italian rivellino, of unclear origin: perhaps from Latin re- + vallum.

Questions about ravelin

What does ravelin mean?
Ravelin means a kind of outwork; a freestanding, wedge-shaped fortification used to split an attacking force as they approach a larger fortress.
What part of speech is ravelin?
Ravelin is a noun.
How do you pronounce ravelin?
Ravelin is pronounced /ˈɹævəlɪn/.
What is the plural of ravelin?
The plural of ravelin is ravelins.

Words near ravelin in the dictionary

  1. raveled
  2. raveled out
  3. raveler
  4. ravelers
  5. Ravelian
  6. ravelin
  7. raveling
  8. raveling out
  9. ravelings
  10. ravelins
  11. ravell'd

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ravelin (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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