machicolation.
An opening between corbels that support a projecting parapet, or in the floor of a gallery or the roof of a portal, of a fortified building from which missiles can be shot or heated items dropped upon assailants attacking the base of the walls.
Meaning & usage
An opening between corbels that support a projecting parapet, or in the floor of a gallery or the roof of a portal, of a fortified building from which missiles can be shot or heated items dropped upon assailants attacking the base of the walls.
A projecting parapet with a series of such openings.
Where this word comes from
From Late Latin machicol(amentum) (“machicolation”) + -ation (suffix indicating an action or process). Machicolamentum may be derived from Old French macher (“to chew; to crush”) (modern French mâcher) + col (“neck”) + Latin -mentum (suffix indicating an instrument or medium, or the result of something). The English word is cognate with Middle English machecolled (“having machicolations”), machecolling (“act of constructing machicolation; the openings making up the machicolation”), Middle French machecoleis (modern French mâchicoulis (“machicolation”)), Latin machecollum (“machicolation”), Occitan machacol.
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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.