fossé

See also: fosse, Fosse, fòsse, and fôsse

English

Etymology

From French fossé.

Noun

fossé (plural fossés)

1. (obsolete, chiefly Scotland) A fosse or ditch. [17th–19th c.]
   • 1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman‎^[1]:

     —The best engineers call them gazons, Trim, said my uncle Toby.—Whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied Trim; your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or stone.——I know they are, Trim in some respects,——quoth my uncle Toby, nodding his head;—for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at St. Nicolas’s gate) and facilitate the passage over it.

   • 1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 165:

     The Major then went with me and Euphemia (Victoria staying at the inn) and showed us what is called the Ditch, being the fossé and ruinous banks of the old castle […] .

   • 1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 146:

     I saw him tied up between two boards, by way of the coffin, which was to be provided by contract; and deposited in the fossé that surrounded our prison […] .

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French fossé, from Old French fossé, from Late Latin fossātum, from Latin fossō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fo.se/, /fɔ.se/

• Audio:

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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Noun

fossé m (plural fossés)

1. ditch; trench; moat

Further reading

• “fossé”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Gallo

Etymology

From Old French fossé, from Late Latin fossātum, from Latin fossō.

Noun

fossé ? (plural fossés)

1. slope, embankment

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French fossé, from Late Latin fossātum, from Latin fossō.

Noun

fossé m (plural fossez)

1. trench; ditch

Descendants

• French: fossé