breastwork
noun
breastwork is a noun meaning “A fortification consisting of a breast-high bulwark; a parapet” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-R-E-A-S-T-W-O-R-K, and it appears about once in every 32 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of breastwork is breastworks.
What does breastwork mean?
noun
- 1
A fortification consisting of a breast-high bulwark; a parapet.
- 2
A railing on the quarter-deck and forecastle.
- 3
A parapet.
- 4
slangBreast augmentation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce breastwork?
- Australia
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-breastwork.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of breastwork
- breastworks plural
- breast-work
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is breastwork?
Breastwork appears about once in every 32 million words in written English, the 173,967th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Breastwork in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fortification consisting of a breast-high bulwark:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | épaulement |
| German | Brustwehr |
| Spanish | parapeto |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does breastwork come from?
From breast + work.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).