bulwark
/ˈbʊl.wɚk/ noun C2- A defensive wall or rampart.
- A defense or safeguard.
- A breakwater.
- The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
- Any means of defence or security. · The party stalwarts constitute the bulwark that ensures the president's term of office.
Plural bulwarks
From the library
When the young man on board saw this person approach, he left his station by the pilot, and, hat in hand, leaned over the ship’s bulwarks.
The next morning going on deck, as he always did at an early hour, the patron found Dantès leaning against the bulwarks gazing with intense earnestness at a pile of granite rocks, which the rising sun tinged with rosy light.
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