fossé

plural fossés

1. ScotlandobsoleteA fosse or ditch.First known use 17th–19th c.

   I saw him tied up between two boards, by way of the coffin, which was to be provided by contract; and deposited in the fossé that surrounded our prison […].

   1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 146

   2 more examples

   —The best engineers call them gazons, Trim, said my uncle Toby.—Whether they are gazons or sods, is not much matter, replied Trim; your Honour knows they are ten times beyond a facing either of brick or stone.——I know they are, Trim in some respects,——quoth my uncle Toby, nodding his head;—for a cannon-ball enters into the gazon right onwards, without bringing any rubbish down with it, which might fill the fossé, (as was the case at St. Nicolas’s gate) and facilitate the passage over it.

   1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

   The Major then went with me and Euphemia (Victoria staying at the inn) and showed us what is called the Ditch, being the fossé and ruinous banks of the old castle […] .

   1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 165