machicolation

• Above the door is a window, in front of which runs a sort of balcony, the floor of which is pierced with openings, like a machicolation, through which the inhabitants may destroy an unwelcome visitor without any danger to themselves. —  Colomba
• This wooden story probably formed the bell chamber; the machicolation-like supports still existed in 1781. —  Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
• Consequently they were abandoned, and their places were taken by projecting galleries of stone, supported, not on wooden beams, but on stone corbels, and it is this second stage in fortification which is called machicolation. —  In Troubadour-Land A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc
• Tall towers, exactly square and equally bare of carving or machicolation, stood at intervals along this forbidding defence and flanked its curtain. —  The Path to Rome
• I saw before me a gloomy stronghold of brick, four-square, and built in the old Italian manner, with battlements at the top, and a small machicolation, little more than —  A Gentleman of France

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

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