Definition of "abatis" []

• A defensive obstacle made by laying felled trees on top of each other with branches, sometimes sharpened, facing the enemy. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I mean that the Wilderness woodsmen, without orders from Clay, had converted the entire area that would have to be traversed into a natural death trap, an abatis, a French word my grandfather did not know, nor did I when I first heard it."
• "Her feet, of a kind that painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in a swelling that was some inches high."
• "High entanglements (known as abatis) may be made by felling trees toward the enemy, and similar entanglements made of brushwood are useful in emergency."