seawall

noun

sea·​wall ˈsē-ˌwȯl 

: a wall or embankment to protect the shore from erosion or to act as a breakwater

Examples of seawall in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When high tides and king tides hit Naples, water spills over the seawalls in some spots nearly two feet deep, flooding sidewalks and threatening homes. — Lauren Pozen, CBS News, 15 Oct. 2026

Anything in the way of that shifting line in the sand — a seawall, a road or sand berm — would have to hold against the pressure of that much water trying to move in. — Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2026

Other recent changes include Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson’s 2025 initiative to offer a 20% discount in city permit fees for eligible living seawall or modular retrofit panel installations. — Michelle Marchante, Miami Herald, 5 Oct. 2026

Traditional seawalls, often made of smooth concrete, can disrupt coastal ecosystems, so for her Living Seawalls project, Dafforn’s team invented textured habitat panels that transform urban shorelines into homes for marine plants and animals. — Michelle Wu, Time, 30 Sep. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for seawall

• aldol
• armhole
• atoll
• awol
• backhaul
• banal
• baseball
• befall
• cabal
• catchall
• cecal
• centrale

Kids Definition

seawall

noun

sea·​wall ˈsē-ˌwȯl 

: a wall or bank to prevent sea waves from wearing away the shore