bulwark

From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) +‎ work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Swedish bålverk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.

• (UK, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈbʊl.wək/
• (US) enPR: bo͝ol'wərk, IPA^(key): /ˈbʊl.wɚk/

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bulwark (plural bulwarks)

1. A defensive wall or rampart.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

     Let thouſands die, their ſlaughtered Carkaſſes
     Shal ſerue for walles and bulwarkes to the reſt:

2. A defense or safeguard.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of the island.

3. A breakwater.
4. (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 11:

     Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.

5. (figurative) Any means of defence or security.

bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)

1. (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
2. (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.