embrasure

plural embrasures

1. architectureAny of the indentations between the merlons of a battlement; an opening in a wall or parapet through which ordnance can be fired.

   Near-synonym: crenel (sometimes hyponymous technically)

   2 more examples

   But there were less casualties than might have been expected, and the barricade rose steadily, a wall of concrete two feet thick, with embrasures for two machine-guns and a small field gun.

   1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter VI, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC

   The walls are slitted with embrasures through which bowmen could fire, indicating that the belfry also served as a stronghold during border skirmishes.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 311, about the church at Pembridge

   Synonyms: crenel[Appendix:Glossary

2. figurativelyAny small protected space.

   She had a special seat there, a little embrasure between two upright slabs of sandstone, which was sheltered and private.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 128

3. The slanting indentation in a wall for a door or window, such that the space is larger on the inside than the outside.

   Now he stands in a window embrasure, Liz's prayer book in hand.

   2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 155

   1 more example

   When the fit had spent itself he walked weakly to the window and, lifting the sash, sat in a corner of the embrasure and leaned his elbow upon the sill.

   1916, James Joyce, chapter 3, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

4. obsoleteAn embrace.

   And suddenly; where injury of chance / Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by / All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips / Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents / Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows / Even in the birth of our own labouring breath:

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]