levée

plural levées

1. uncommonUncommon spelling of levee.

   During a flood, the areas adjacent to the channel tend to receive deposits of the coarsest sediments carried by the water. These areas build up and are called levées. Some of the best tree growth is found on these higher areas because they are well-drained.

   2003, Francine Hughes, editor, The Flooded Forest: Guidance for Policy Makers and River Managers in Europe on the Restoration of Floodplain Forests, page 9

   1 more example

   At this place the levée ran along about one hundred and fifty yards back from the ordinary bank of the river, thus leaving when the water was low, a smooth green lawn, beautifully adapted for an encampment, with the levée or dike, eight feet high and fifteen feet wide, protecting from attack on the land side. Breastworks were thrown up from the levée to the river, above and below the encampment. Back of the levée there was a fine plantation.

   1877, John Stevens Cabot Abbott, chapter XXIV, in The History of the Civil War in America, volume 2, Springfield: C. A. Nichols & Co., page 290