barbican

English

Alternative forms

• barbacan

Noun

Wikipedia barbican (plural barbicans)

1. A tower at the entrance to a castle or fortified town
2. A fortress at the end of a bridge.
3. An opening in the wall of a fortress through which the guns are levelled; a narrow loophole through which arrows and other missiles may be shot.
   • 1922 James Joyce, Ulysses 11:

     Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the high barbacans.

4. A temporary wooden tower built for defensive purposes.

Translations

A tower at the entrance to a castle or fortified town

Czech: barbakán (cs) m. Hungarian: barbakán (hu)

Slovak: barbakán (sk) m.

References

• Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language (1766)
• Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989