The moon at the quarters, when half its disk appears illuminated.
Something in the shape of a half-moon, or, loosely, of a crescent. See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me, from the best of all my land, A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. Shak., 1 Hen. IV., iii. 1.
In fortification, an outwork composed of two faces forming a salient angle whose gorge is in the form of a crescent or a half-moon.
After referring to a former letter, and giving a brief notice of their arrival at Beaufort, and his selection of a site, a few miles higher up the river, for laying out a town, he adds, âThe river here forms a half-moon, along side of which the banks are about forty feet high, and on the top is a flat, which they call 'a bluff. '
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Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe
On the 28th Cesare opened the attack, training his guns upon the citadel; but it was not until a week later that, having found a weak spot in the walls on the side commanding the town, he opened a breach through which his men were able to force a passage, and so possess themselves of a half-moon.
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The Life of Cesare Borgia
Nevertheless he set about two other Bridges in the neighborhood, nearer Mainz (few miles below that City); kept manoeuvring his Force, in huge half-moon, round that quarter, and mysteriously up and down; alarming Coigny wholly into the Mainz region.
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History of Friedrich II of Prussia
Certain enough, a gap there is, covered only by some half-moon battery in advance: into this, General Mannstein has been looking wistfully a long time: "Austrian Line fallen out at elbow yonder; clouted by some battery in advance?"
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History of Friedrich II of Prussia
âThe wind falling light, I did not venture on laying the flag-ship and the Lautaro alongside the Spanish frigates, as I at first intended, but anchored with springs on our cables, abreast of the shipping, which was arranged in a half-moon of two lines, the rear-rank being judiciously disposed so as to cover the intervals of the ships in the front line.
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The Life of Thomas Lord Cochrane