Also 8 fletch. [Fr. flèche, primarily ‘arrow.’]
1. Fortif. = ARROW 8.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4755/2. We … attacked the two fleches.
1761. Lond. Mag., XXX. Sept., 460/1. The ground, in front of the above-mentioned corps, was very strong, by reason of the thick brush woods and enclosures, and several small fletches that were thrown up along the front.
1804. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., To Major Graham, 29 March. The best thing to do would be to undertake some useful work, such as the completion of the glacis of the fort, to perfect it, to knock down that bad work in front of the gateway, and to make a good modern flèche in lieu thereof, and pay the workmen in grain.
1827. Southey, Hist. Penins. War, II. 107. The suburb beyond the Ebro was defended by redoubts and fleches, with batteries and traverses at the entrance of the streets.
1851. J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif., 101. The earth excavated to form a terreplein for the guns will supply that required for the parapet of the flèche, which differs from a redan only in having no ditch.
2. Arch. A slender spire, esp. one placed over the intersection of the nave and transept.
1848. B. Webb, Continent. Ecclesiol., 160. The west end of the choir retains a very elegant tall flêche for the sance-bell.
1886. Mrs. Caddy, Jeanne D’Arc, 83. The red-brick castle, with its high-pitched lead roof with many pinnacles and flèches, and its tall, peaked church tower, then, as now, crested the height above the bridge, the deep-arched, heavily-buttressed bridge of unequal arches which rises to an angle of 140° in the centre.
