Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A pattern along the top of a parapet (fortified wall), most often in the form of multiple, regular, rectangular spaces in the top of the wall, through which arrows or other weaponry may be shot, especially as used in medieval European architecture.
  • noun The act of crenellating; adding a top row that looks like the top of a medieval castle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the action of constructing ramparts with gaps for firing guns or arrows
  • noun a rampart built around the top of a castle with regular gaps for firing arrows or guns

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There is also mehrab, the niche where the Imam, or priest, leads the prayer and crenellation, which is the decoration on the top of the mosque.

    Paly Voice 2009

  • A sparrow roosting in a bent crenellation took flight, but fell out of the sky.

    Rogue Oracle 2011

  • A sparrow roosting in a bent crenellation took flight, but fell out of the sky.

    Rogue Oracle 2011

  • They were quickly enlarged, vertically at first, and traces of the old crenellation are still visible in the second-story masonry.

    Ponte Vecchio, a Bridge That Spans Centuries Jay Pridmore 2010

  • All this adds a note of poignancy to the glorious shots of these homes, which range from former castles to Georgian manors to others gussied up by the Gothicizing craze of the 19th-century think crenellation and turrets.

    Gift books Post 2010

  • As his torchflame carved sight out of shadow, Leferic saw a single man standing at the wall with a bow, one foot on a crenellation.

    THE RIVER KINGS’ ROAD Liane Merciel 2010

  • In his piece about Awana, he writes amusingly about taking a pee and I couldn't help but recall the moment when the great man, he of pulchritudinous prose, goitred with soliped leitmotifs, crenellation and spittle, took one next to mee.

    Archive 2007-03-01 ROB McGIBBON 2007

  • In his piece about Awana, he writes amusingly about taking a pee and I couldn't help but recall the moment when the great man, he of pulchritudinous prose, goitred with soliped leitmotifs, crenellation and spittle, took one next to mee.

    AA . . . On The Piss ROB McGIBBON 2007

  • Kites spun their slow circles above its pale stone crenellation.

    Spirit Gate 2006

  • The hunter leader marched up a stone ramp onto a crenellation in the flower-bedecked wall and pushed himself gracefully out over the steam-filled abyss.

    Genellan- Planetfall Gier, Scott 2005

Comments

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  • "Fortification. A 'license to crenellate' was official permission to raise a fortified building or fortify an existing structure. Jagged protective stonework at the top of a castle wall."

    August 24, 2008

  • "For eighteen months he had worked in the TV studios at Bristol. A physical description from a woman living two doors away from him in Ealing suggested 'a weakish sort of mouth in which the lower teeth were set small and evenly spaced, like the crenellations of a young boy's toy fort'."

    - Colin Dexter, 'The Way Through The Woods'.

    November 1, 2008