Fortif. Also 7 espaulment, 9 epaulment. [a. Fr. épaulement (earlier esp-), f. épauler to protect (troops) by an epaulement, f. épaule shoulder.] ‘A covering mass raised to protect from the fire of the enemy, but differing from a parapet in having no arrangement made for the convenient firing over it by defenders’ (Adm. Smyth).
1687. J. Richards, Jrnl. Siege Buda, 8. To beat the Enemy from an Espaulment they had made to flank the Breach.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xlv. (1804), 306. I never saw an epaulement but once—and that was at the siege of Namur.
1811. Pinkerton, Petralogy, I. 43. Fasces of prisms, projecting from the wall, like epaulements.
1859. F. A. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (1862), 251. On the balls striking the epaulment, they ricochéd.
