Earthwork1. (n.) Any construction, whether a temporary breastwork or permanent fortification, for attack or defense, the material of which is chiefly earth.
2. (n.) The operation connected with excavations and embankments of earth in preparing foundations of buildings, in constructing canals, railroads, etc.
3. (n.) An embankment or construction made of earth.
Thesaurus Entries
abatis, advanced work, arch dam, backstop, balistraria, bamboo curtain, bank, banquette, bar, barbed-wire entanglement, barbican, barrage, barricade, barrier, bartizan, bastion, battlement, bear-trap dam, beaver dam, boom, breakwater, breastwork, brick wall, buffer, bulkhead, bulwark, casemate, cheval-de-frise, circumvallation, cofferdam, contravallation, counterscarp, curtain, dam, defense, demibastion, dike, ditch, drawbridge, embankment, enclosure, entanglement, escarp, escarpment, fence, fieldwork, fortalice, fortification, gate, glacis, gravity dam, groin, hydraulic-fill dam, iron curtain, jam, jetty, leaping weir, levee, logjam, loophole, lunette, machicolation, mantelet, merlon, milldam, moat, mole, mound, outwork, palisade, parados, parapet, portcullis, postern gate, rampart, ravelin, redan, redoubt, roadblock, rock-fill dam, sally port, scarp, sconce, seawall, shutter dam, stockade, stone wall, tenaille, vallation, vallum, wall, weir, wicket dam, work