[a. F. coupure, in OF. copeüre, coupeüre cutting, f. couper to cut: see -URE.] Mil. A ditch or trench; esp. one dug by the besieged for purposes of defence. b. Fortif. A passage cut through the glacis in the re-entrant angle of the covered way, to facilitate the sallies of the besieged. (Stocqueler, Mil. Encycl.).
1710. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), VI. 639. The beseigers … made too deep coupures to drain the inundations.
1714. Lond. Gaz., No. 5264/12. They carried all the Coupure which was behind the Monastry.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XV. ii. Making coupures (trenches or sunk barricades) in the streets.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 138/1. Portions of the faces … are isolated by a small ditch and parapet at right angles to the face, called a coupure.
