cheval-de-frise

[ shuh-val-duh-freez ]

noun,plural che·vaux-de-frise [shuh-voh-duh-freez]. /ʃəˈvoʊ dəˈfriz/. Usually chevaux-de-frise.
  1. a portable obstacle, usually a sawhorse, covered with projecting spikes or barbed wire, for military use in closing a passage, breaking in a defensive wall, etc.

Origin of cheval-de-frise

1
1680–90; <French; literally, horse of Friesland, so called because first used by Frisians

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How to use cheval-de-frise in a sentence

  • Whence also cheval de frise, a contrivance used by the Frieslanders against cavalry.

  • The cheval de frise had given way under the strain upon it, and the rope had dropped on to the coping of the wall itself.

    In Strange Company | Guy Boothby
  • A cheval-de-frise consists of a horizontal piece of timber armed with wooden or iron lances, which project some eight or ten feet.

  • These must be sharpened, and as the walls are built, fixed among the stones so as to make a cheval-de-frise.

    Won by the Sword | G.A. Henty
  • But between the hunters and their fallen quarry reared a cheval de frise of flame and fallen timber impossible to cross.

British Dictionary definitions for cheval-de-frise

cheval-de-frise

/ (ʃəˌvældəˈfriːz) /


nounplural chevaux-de-frise (ʃəˌvəʊdəˈfriːz)
  1. a portable barrier of spikes, sword blades, etc, used to obstruct the passage of cavalry

  2. a row of spikes or broken glass set as an obstacle on top of a wall

Origin of cheval-de-frise

1
C17: from French, literally: horse from Friesland (where it was first used)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012