gazon

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Scrabble Score

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Meaning

noun

"—I would throw out the earth upon this hand towards the town for the scarp,—and on that hand towards the campaign for the counterscarp.—Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby:—And when I had sloped them to your mind,——an’ please your Honour, I would face the glacis, as the finest fortifications are done in Flanders, with sods,——and as your Honour knows they should be,—and I would make the walls and parapets with sods too.—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."

Borrowing from French gazon, from Middle French gazon, from Old French gason, wason (“piece of ground covered with grass, turf”), from Old Frankish *wasō (“ground, turf, sod”), from Proto-Germanic *wasô (“moisture; ground”), from Proto-Indo-European *wes- (“moist, damp, wet”). Cognate with German Wasen (“lawn”), German Low German Waas (“bundle of twigs”), Dutch waas (“haze, mist, film”).

gazons (plural)