breakwater

Definition

A construction in or around a harbour designed to break the force of the sea and to provide shelter for vessels lying inside.

Etymology

From break + water. Compare Dutch breekwater (“breakwater”). Compare firebreak.

Example Sentences

• "[…]there is a channel, some three miles wide between the city and the mainland, and some mile and a half wide between it and the sandy breakwater called the Lido, which divides the lagoon from the Adriatic,"
• "But there's a pier or breakwater runs out into the sea just here, which we could defend longer than anything else, like Horatius and his bridge."
• "Using the countless tons of rock from the cliff-face, supplemented by much more from inland, they threw out a huge breakwater, 2,000 ft. long and 80 ft. high, roughly at right angles to the quay, so forming an almost completely sheltered corner. Fifty years later, this massive mole is still standing up to the worst that the Irish Sea can do."