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Outwork   Listen
noun
Outwork  n.  (Fort.) A minor defense constructed beyond the main body of a work, as a ravelin, lunette, hornwork, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Outwork" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the assault, and on February 8th the important outwork on Muselim Hill was taken by an impulsive bayonet charge. The city was not captured, however, until April 23d, when an entire day's ceaseless fighting ended in the yielding of the garrison, the climax of ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... found at his cottage secreted in a very private locality, as though his conscience smote him or his fear sought to prevent discovery. His legal friend, however, driven from the mere outwork of facts, had taken refuge in the citadel of law; he was equal to the occasion. Alas! Alderson knew the ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... at last at the outwork of the whole matter in its bearings upon life and human duty. It was in the search after this last, that Spinoza, as we said, travelled over so strange a country, and we now expect his conclusions. To discover the true good of man, to direct his actions to such ends as will secure to him real and ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... work to attack the outwork," he said, "but that once won, I see not how we are to proceed against the castle itself. The machines that the earl has will scarcely hurl stones strong enough even to knock the mortar from the walls. Ladders are useless where they cannot be planted; ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... declared in April was no empty threat. The sails of Federal frigates, still more the sinister black hulls of the new steam men-of-war, meant that the South was fast becoming a land besieged, with every outwork accessible by water exposed to sudden attack and almost certain capture by any good amphibious force of soldiers ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... on the 5th, General Reilly's brigade had struck an outwork, which he promptly attacked, but, as usual, got entangled in the trees and bushes which had been felled, and lost about five hundred men, in killed and wounded; but, as above reported, this outwork was found abandoned the next day, and we could see from it that the rebels were ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... enfilade a part of it. Washington had meanwhile drawn his followers within the entrenchment; and the firing now began on both sides. Rain fell all day. The raw earth of the embankment was turned to soft mud, and the men in the ditch of the outwork stood to the knee in water. The swivels brought back from the camp at Gist's farm were mounted on the rampart; but the gunners were so ill protected that the pieces were almost silenced by the French musketry. The fight lasted nine ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... with high walls, and a deep moat. Beyond the moat is another wall with a strong outwork and gate. There are believed to be a couple of guns on the outwork, and eight on ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... on a sort of dais in the centre of the room, was a courteous and urbane personage of affable exterior. He was further hedged in with a species of outwork of the sentry-box formation, which concealed his lower limbs from view:—a precaution evidently designed to protect him from the fierce onslaught of some demented candidate—who, when suffering from the continuous effect of "examination on the brain," might have been suddenly goaded to frenzy ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... kaleidoscope. Wherefore rejoice, ye Continentals, and be thankful, and visit the Nassauese, bringing beef, butter, and beauty,—bringing a few French muslins to replace the coarse English fabrics, and buxom Irish girls to outwork the idle negro women,—bringing new books, newspapers, and periodicals,—bringing the Yankee lecturer, all expenses paid, and his drink found him. All these good things, and more, the States have for the Nassauese, of whom we must now take leave, for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... this holy season the Parisians, on coming forth from Mass, learnt that, notwithstanding the sacredness of the day, the Armagnacs had appeared before the Porte Saint-Honore and had set fire to the outwork which defended its approach. It was further reported that Messire Charles of Valois was posted, for the time being, along with Brother Richard and the Maid Jeanne, in the Hog Market without the Walls. The same afternoon, ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... sending them scurrying like wild rabbits to the nearest cover, while the steamer now glided slowly down, closer and closer in shore, till at last she covered the river-face of the fort like an outwork, and a cheer rose from the little garrison, and was answered from the "Startler" as the forces, so to speak, combined, ready to act together for ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... the harbour, Pasitelidas began to be afraid that they might get up to the city before its defenders were there and, the fortification being also carried, he might be taken prisoner, and so abandoned the outwork and ran into the town. But the Athenians from the ships had already taken Torone, and their land forces following at his heels burst in with him with a rush over the part of the old wall that had been ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... mere quiet smile of contemplation, Indicative of some surprise and pity; And Juan grew carnation with vexation, Which was not very wise, and still less witty, Since he had gain'd at least her observation, A most important outwork of the city— As Juan should have known, had not his senses By last night's ghost been ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... had been sent away to retrieve his reputation for courage. He came to Montenegro to earn a decoration, and begged the Prince to let him go with the Montenegrin battalion. At the foot of each ridge was an outwork which had first to be taken by assault, from across the open, and which was taken in the early twilight, the Turks seeking refuge in the redoubt above. The Montenegrin force reversed the works they ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... restraint upon the freedom of virtuous principle itself, but is observed with that jealous circumspection which considers even suspicion as a stain upon its purity. No matter how intense affection in a virtuous bosom may be, yet no decorum of life is violated by it, no outwork even of the minor morals surrendered, nor is any act or expression suffered to appear that might take away from the exquisite feeling of what is morally essential to female modesty. For this reason, therefore, it was that our heroine, though anxious ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Rassam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens. These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. high, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... successes in front of Widdin and Slivnitza; but the defenders of the latter place (an all-important position north-west of Sofia) hurried up all possible forces. Two Bulgarian regiments are said to have marched 123 kilometres in thirty hours in order to defend that military outwork of their capital; while others, worn out with marching, rode forward on horseback, two men to each horse, and then threw themselves into the fight. The Bulgarian artillery was well served, and proved to be very superior ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... do not anticipate much severe fighting. Scott's Fabian policy will demoralize their armies. If the people do not bother the great Cunetator to death before he is ready to move to assured victory, he will make defeat impossible. Meanwhile there will be enough outwork going on, like those neat jobs in Missouri, to keep us all interested...... Know, O comrade, that I am already a corporal,—an acting corporal, selected by our commanding officer for my general effect of pipe-clay, my rapidity of heel and toe, my present arms, etc., but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... Garrison of an Outwork relieved. Spending an Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup. A short Cut. Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages of leading a Storming Party. Looking for a Customer. Disadvantages of being a stormed Party. Confusion of all Parties. A waking ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... will condemn all these thoughts, and I condemn them no less myself; for it is now my stedfast opinion that the woman who gives up the least outwork of her virtue doth, in that ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... hill called Jani'culum, on the north bank of the Tiber, was fortified as an outwork by Ancus Martius, and joined to the city by the bridge; he also dug a trench round the newly erected buildings, for their greater security, and called it the ditch of the Quirites. 9. The public works erected by the kings were of stupendous magnitude, but the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... reinforcements from England reached Mole St. Nicholas, a force detached thence under Major-General Whyte made a dash upon Port-au-Prince. Vigorously handled, and under cover of a violent thunderstorm, the landing parties carried an important outwork in handsome style, and thus assured the surrender of the whole place. The spoils were 101 cannon and 32 ships, with cargoes worth about half a million sterling (4th June 1794). This brilliant success cost the assailants very few lives; but the heats of the summer and probably also the intemperance ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... desert on three sides, and the sea on the fourth; and a man might as well have flown as endeavoured to scale it. There was but one path up to the entrance, very steep and difficult; and when you were there, you must have pierced outwork after outwork, and picked the lock of gate after gate. So there sat I in this delicious retreat, hopeless, and bursting with rage. I called upon death day and night, as my only refuge. I had no comfort but in seeing my keeper mad with jealousy, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... greenwood" with furze in golden blossom, birds singing, and the clucking of partridges. At one place where the old trees echoed the shouts of country children at their sports, there rose above the summits a bold round tower, which on nearer approach we found to be an outwork of the fortification of a venerable convent called Dair Hhanna, which in comparatively recent times had been converted into a castle, but convent, castle, and tower are now become ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for—playing at forts to run away with me." He smiled an apology. "I virtually fortified Redmoat—against trespassers of any kind, I mean. You have seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound. This is artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork; a portion of the ancient castrum." Again he waved indicatively, this ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... the eastward. This was the more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, under the most favourable circumstances, to find one's way into any harbour along this coast, fenced off, as it is, from the ocean by a complicated outwork of lofty islands, which, in their turn, are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock, sown as thick as peas, for miles to seaward. There are no pilots until you are within the islands, and no longer want them,—no lighthouses or beacons of any sort; and all that you have to go by ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... of Gwalior are situated in a small outwork on the western side of the fortress, immediately above the Dhondha gateway. They are called "nau chauki", or "the nine cells", and are both well lighted and well ventilated. But in spite of their height, from fifteen to twenty-six feet, they must be insufferably close in the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Front-de-Boeuf, whose character placed him often at feud with his enemies, had made considerable additions to the strength of his castle, by building towers upon the outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in castles of the period, lay through an arched barbican, or outwork, which was terminated and defended by a small turret at ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... insignificant party which barred the road to safety. Moeller at length perceived his danger, and commencing a series of rapid retirements towards the northern spur of Impati, fixed his only hope on the possibility of riding completely around that mountain, outwork though it was of the main Boer army in its descent from the frontier. In a spruit, a branch of the Sand river, which runs through Schultz' farm, the Maxim, outpaced and overdriven, stuck fast, and it was promptly attacked and captured by a party of twenty-five of the enemy who had descried ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... weavers, working in their own houses, or did he also keep a certain number of looms working in his house? It was characteristic of the period in which he lived that something like a miniature factory system was establishing itself in the midst of the new outwork system. The clothiers were beginning to set up looms in their own houses and to work them by journeymen weavers; as a rule the independent weavers greatly disliked the practice, for either they were forced from the position of free masters into ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... and unessential elements. They confuse, in one general consecration of reverence, its primary principles, and the local and temporary accidents of the form in which it was first presented to them, and they are as ready to accept battle a l'outrance for some useless outwork as for the citadel itself. And, for the same reason, they are ready to think that the citadel is lost when the outwork is taken; to suppose, e.g., that the spiritual nature of man is a fiction if he was not directly made by God out of the dust of the earth, or that the Christian ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... which was ordered to cross the stream when Reilly's effort against the lower bridge should begin. Our first information was that the fortified hill in front of Reilly was held by infantry, and as the work was in form a redoubt, its garrison of course on foot, we assumed that it was a detached outwork of the Confederate line. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 597.] Reilly kept up a cannonade of the hill in front of him during the 26th, and made some attempts to get over the stream at the bridge, but did not ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... somewhat acquainted. It is all very well to anticipate the fact which 'eye hath not seen,' etc. But men need the prospect of an eternal joy they know of, as much as they needed that awe-inspiring Jehovah should outwork in love-inspiring Christ. In view of this, among other joys set before him, the extra-earnest worker, in public or private, can more easily deprive himself of that amount of social intercourse with the other sex ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... meant to take away half the crown of his neighbour, he lost the whole of his own. Louis the Sixteenth could not with impunity countenance a new republic: yet between his throne and that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, he had the whole Atlantic for a ditch. He had for an outwork the English nation itself, friendly to liberty, adverse to that mode of it. He was surrounded by a rampart of monarchies, most of them allied to him, and generally under his influence. Yet even thus secured, a republic erected under ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... police cum down. They used their guns, but—hill! the bullets just punctured their skins, and they picked thim out wid their fingers and wint for the coppers and done thim up. I tell ye, Jawn, that a wild Irishman, frish from the bogs and the hills, can outwork, outfight, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... as a policy worthy of an Indian statesman, the attempt to raise up a barrier in Affghanistan by way of defensive outwork to India, we conceive that all which should have been desired was a barrier against the Affghans themselves, by means of guarantees reposing on the structure of the Affghan government, and not any barrier against Persia as the agent of Russia; because, from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... a trifling ailment gave one the impression that she was more concerned with the fortunes of the malady than with oneself, and when one got rid of a cold one felt that she almost expected to be given its postal address. Probably her manner was merely the defensive outwork of an innate shyness, but she was not a woman who ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... born in 1813, passed his youthful days at the rectory of Hauxwell, a village in Wensleydale, on the edge of the great uplands that stretch northwards towards Richmond and Barnard Castle, and form an outwork of the Pennine range and the backbone of northern England. The scene has been described in that biography of his Sister Dora, which he here so unceremoniously despatches as a romance. 'Hauxwell is a tiny village lying on the southern slope ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley

... beheld it, the Sage spake: "Lo ye, my children, the castle and its outwork, and its dyke that wardeth the land of the Well at the World's End. Now from to-morrow, when we enter into the great sea of the rock molten in the ancient earth-fires, there is no least peril of pursuit for you. Yet amidst that sea should ye perish belike, were it not for ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... formed the conception that an Italian State was possible, and he intended to convert either Austrian Lombardy itself, or some other portion of Northern Italy, into a Republic, serving as a military outwork for France. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe



Words linked to "Outwork" :   defense



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