Word of the Day

: January 18, 2009

barbican

noun BAR-bih-kun

What It Means

: an outer defensive work; especially : a tower at a gate or bridge

barbican in Context

The enemy stormed the castle, but the barbicans kept them at bay long enough for the defenders inside to assemble and prepare a defense.

Did You Know?

You’ve heard of moats and drawbridges, but "barbicans" may be unfamiliar. Those stone outerworks stood in front of the gate of a castle or bridge and helped prevent invaders from gaining access to the main entryway. Up to a point, the case for the history of the word "barbican" is well fortified. It is clear that English speakers seized the term from the Anglo-French "barbecane," which in turn had been taken from the Medieval Latin "barbacana" (both of those words had the same meaning as the modern word). The etymological path crumbles from there, however. Some speculate that the ultimate ancestor of "barbican" might lie in a Persian phrase meaning "house on the wall," but that speculation has never been proven.