gabion.
A cylindrical basket or cage of wicker which was filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications and other engineering work (a precursor to the sandbag).
Meaning & usage
A cylindrical basket or cage of wicker which was filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications and other engineering work (a precursor to the sandbag).
A woven wire mesh unit, sometimes rectangular, made from a continuous mesh panel and filled with stones sometimes coated with polyvinyl chloride.
A porous metal cylinder filled with stones and used in a variety of civil engineering contexts, especially in the construction of retaining walls, the reinforcing of steep slopes, or in the prevention of erosion in river banks.
A knickknack, objet d'art, curiosity, collectable.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *ḱowh₁ós? Proto-Italic *kawos Latin cavus Proto-Indo-European *-éyos Proto-Italic *-ejos Proto-Italic *-eos Latin -eus Latin *caveus Latin cavea Italian gabbia Proto-Indo-European *-ōder. Proto-Indo-European *-Hōder.? Latin -ōnem Italian -one Italian gabbionebor. English gabion Borrowed from Italian gabbione, augmentative of gabbia (“cage”), itself from Latin cavea (whence also English cage, jail and cajole — the two latter via Latin caveola), from Latin cavus (whence also English cave).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.