palisade

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A fence of pales forming a defense barrier or fortification.
2. n. One of the pales of such a fence.
3. n. A line of lofty steep cliffs, usually along a river.
4. v. To equip or fortify with palisades or a palisade.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A fence made of strong pales or stakes set firmly in the ground, forming an inclosure, or used as a defense. In fortification it is often placed vertically at the foot of the counterscarp, or presented at an angle at the foot of a parapet.
2. n. A stake, of which two or more were in former times carried by dragoons, intended to be planted in the ground for defense. They were 4½ feet long, with forked iron heads. In the seventeenth century an attempt was made to combine a rest for the musket with the palisade. Also called swine-feather and Swedish feather.
3. n. A wire sustaining the hair: a feature of the head-dress of the close of the seventeenth century.
4. n. plural
5. n. A precipice of trap-rock on the western bank of the Hudson river, extending from Fort Lee northward about fifteen miles. Its height is from 200 to 500 feet. The name is also used in various other localities for formations of a similar character.
6. To surround, inclose, or fortify with a palisade or palisades.

Wiktionary

1. n. A wall of wooden stakes, used as a defensive barrier
2. n. A line of cliffs
3. n. biology An even row of cells. e.g.: palisade mesophyll cells.
4. v. transitive To equip with a palisade.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Fort.) A strong, long stake, one end of which is set firmly in the ground, and the other is sharpened; also, a fence formed of such stakes set in the ground as a means of defense.
2. n. Any fence made of pales or sharp stakes.
3. n. A line of bold cliffs, esp. one showing basaltic columns; -- usually in pl., and orig. used as the name of the cliffs on the west bank of the lower Hudson.
4. v. To surround, inclose, or fortify, with palisades.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. fortification consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground
2. v. surround with a wall in order to fortify