jetty

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A structure, such as a pier, that projects into a body of water to influence the current or tide or to protect a harbor or shoreline from storms or erosion.
2. n. A wharf.
3. adj. Resembling jet, as in texture.
4. adj. Of the color jet; black: jetty tresses.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A projecting part of a building, especially a part that projects so as to overhang the wall below, as the upper story of a timber house, a bay-window, etc. See extract under jetty, intransitive verb
2. n. A projection of stone, brick, wood, or other material (but generally formed of piles), affording a convenient place for landing from and discharging vessels or boats, or serving as a protection against the encroachment or assault of the waves; also, a pier of stone or other material projecting from the bank of a stream obliquely to its course, for the purpose of directing the current upon an obstruction to be removed, as a bed of sand or gravel, or to deflect it from a bank which it tends to undermine. Important jetties are those at the mouth of the Mississippi river, constructed of willow mattresses sunk by weighting with stone, and laid along both banks of the river, to contract the current and cause it to scour out the channel. See mattress.
3. To jut; project.
4. To make a jetty.
5. Jetting, or jutting out; swelling.
6. Made of jet.
7. Black as jet.

Wiktionary

1. adj. archaic Made of jet, or like jet in color.
2. n. A structure of wood or stone extended into the sea to influence the current or tide, or to protect a harbor or beach.
3. n. A wharf or dock extending from the shore.
4. n. architecture A part of a building that jets or projects beyond the rest, and overhangs the wall below.
5. v. obsolete, intransitive To jut out; to project.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Made of jet, or like jet in color.
2. n. (Arch.) A part of a building that jets or projects beyond the rest, and overhangs the wall below.
3. n. A wharf or pier extending from the shore.
4. n. (Hydraul. Engin.) A structure of wood or stone extended into the sea to influence the current or tide, or to protect a harbor; a mole.
5. v. obsolete To jut out; to project.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a protective structure of stone or concrete; extends from shore into the water to prevent a beach from washing away