seawalln.
1.
a. A wall or embankment to prevent the encroachment of the sea, or to form a breakwater, etc.In Old English a cliff by the sea.
ΘΠ
the world > the earth > land > land mass > shore or bank > embankment or dam > [noun] > sea-wall
sea-dike1394
seawallc1450
sea-head1531
bulwark1555
sea-bank1647
swash bank1852
OE Beowulf 1924 Higelac..wunað..sæwealle neah.
c1450 Jacob's Well (1900) 6 Þe more þe watyr in þe se is styred wyth þe wynde, þe more it flowyth, & brekyth out, ouer þe se-wallys in-to dyuerse placys.
1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus Agger,..a water-banke: a sea wall.
1707 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husbandry (1721) I. 29 The..making of Drains, Sea-walls [etc.].
1862 D. T. Ansted & R. G. Latham Channel Islands i. iii. 52 The inroads of the sea..have been checked, wherever necessary, by a sea wall.
b. North American. ‘An embankment of stones thrown up by the waves on a shore’ ( Cent. Dict. 1891).
ΚΠ
1896 Trans. Royal Soc. Canada 2 ii. 210 Sea-wall, a gravel or boulder ridge thrown up by the waves.
2. The sea as a wall or barrier of defence. Cf. sea-walled. rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > defence > [noun] > means of defence > sea as
wall1436
seawall1879
1879 ‘G. Eliot’ Theophrastus Such xviii. 327 Many of us have thought that our sea-wall is a specially divine arrangement.
Derivatives
sea-walled adj. surrounded or protected by the sea as a wall of defence.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > defence > [adjective] > defended > by the sea
sea-walled1597
1597 W. Shakespeare Richard II iii. iv. 44 When our sea-walled garden the whole land Is full of weedes. View more context for this quotation
sea-waller n. one who builds seawalls.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > worker > workers according to type of work > manual or industrial worker > builder > [noun] > builder of walls > types of
ground-waller1477
diker1497
cowan1598
rough waller1614
sea-waller1790
stone-diker1901
1790 Trans. Soc. Arts 8 92 A contract was entered into with two companies of sea-wallers,..for the erection of a new wall.
sea-walling n. the building or repairing of seawalls.
ΘΠ
the world > the earth > water > flow or flowing > flood or flooding > structures protecting from water or flooding > [noun] > wall or dyke > building or repairing
sea-walling1794
1794 Trans. Soc. Arts 12 115 One of the chief uses to which Chestnut is applied..is sea-walling, or embankments against the sea.
1852 J. Wiggins Pract. Embanking Lands 2 Having been for many years connected much with sea-walling, both in building and repairing.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1911; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.OE