Edit page | Page history | Printable version

gabion

1. A hollow cylinder of wickerwork, like a basket without a bottom. Gabions are made of various sizes, and filled with earth in building fieldworks to shelter men from an enemy's fire.

2. (Science: physics) An openwork frame, as of poles, filled with stones and sunk, to assist in forming a bar dyke, etc, as in harbor improvement.

Origin: f, from It. Gabbione a large cage, gabion, from gabbia cage, L. Cavea. See cage.