gabion
/ˈɡeɪ.bi.ən/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.36 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cylindrical basket or cage of wicker which was filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications and other engineering work (a precursor to the sandbag).
noun
A woven wire mesh unit, sometimes rectangular, made from a continuous mesh panel and filled with stones sometimes coated with polyvinyl chloride.
noun
A porous metal cylinder filled with stones and used in a variety of civil engineering contexts, especially in the construction of retaining walls, the reinforcing of steep slopes, or in the prevention of erosion in river banks.
noun
Example Sentences
- "When our artillery came before the walls of the town, the English within the walls killed some of our men, and several pioneers who were making gabions. And seeing they were so wounded that there was no hope of curing them, their comrades stripped them, and put them still living inside the gabions, which served to fill them up."
- "Then ſe the bringing of our ordinance / Along the trench into the battery, / VVhere vve vvil haue gabions of ſix foot broad / To ſaue our Cannoniers from muſket ſhot, […]"
- "Reliquiae Trotcosienses: Or, the Gabions of the Late Jonathan Oldbuck Esq. of Monkbarns — title of unfinished novel by Walter Scott."
- "1774, James Cant, introduction, The Muses Threnodie p. vi, quoted in 2004, Walter Scott Reliquiae Trotcosiensis, Edinburgh University Press, p.6, The meaning of the word Gabion, as it is used in the poem, is not to be sought for in any dictionary. It was of the venerable old gentleman Mr Ruthven′s own coining, and it was well enough understood among his select friends, to mean nothing else but the miscellaneous curiosities in his closet humorously described in the poem."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *ḱowh₁ós? Proto-Italic *kawos Latin cavus Proto-Indo-European *-éyos Proto-Italic *-ejos Proto-Italic *-eos Latin -eus Latin *caveus Latin cavea Italian gabbia Proto-Indo-European *-ōder. Proto-Indo-European *-Hōder.? Latin -ōnem Italian -one Italian gabbionebor. English gabion Borrowed from Italian gabbione, augmentative of gabbia (“cage”), itself from Latin cavea (whence also English cage, jail and cajole — the two latter via Latin caveola), from Latin cavus (whence also English cave).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
gabion wall