Search the Dictionary

f a brigade, regiment, or battalion; the extreme right or left; as, to attack an enemy in flank is to attack him on the side. When to right and left the front Divided, and to either flank retired. Milton.

One who, or that which, flanks, as a skirmisher or a body of troops sent out upon the flanks of an army toguard a line of march, or a fort projecting so as to command the side of an assailing body. They threw out flankers, and endeavored to dislodge their assailants. W. Irwing.

To go beyond, or be superior to, on the flank; to pass around or turn the flank or flanks of.

A piece of defensive (or, sometimes, ornamental) armor for a horse's neck, breast, and flanks; a barb. [Often in the pl.]

cting outward from the main inclosure of a fortification, consisting of two faces and two flanks, and so constructed that it is able to defend by a flanking fire the adjacent curtain, or wall which extends from one bastion to another. Two adjacent bastions are connected by the curtain, which joins the flank of one with…

A change of front, as a body of troops attacked in the flank.

A half bastion, or that part of a bastion consisting of one face and one flank.

Half the gorge, or entrance into a bastion, taken from the angle of the flank to the center of the bastion.

Having a double row of columns on each on the flanks, as well as in front and rear; -- said of a temple.

A sharp angle in any surface of wainscoting or other woodwork; the upright sides which flank any paneled work, as the sides of windows, where the jamb makes an elbow with the window back. Gwilt.

The shoulder of a bastion, or the place where its face and flank meet and form the angle, called the angle of the shoulder.

ns, fascines, or bags, filled with earth, or of earth heaped up, to afford cover from the flanking fire of an enemy.

me. Milton. We are fellows still, Serving alike in sorrow. Shak. That enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude. Gibbon.

A commissioned or noncommissioned officer posted in the rear of a line, or on the flank of a column, of soldiers, to rectify mistakes and insure steadiness and promptness in the ranks.

A traverse made with gabions between guns or on their flanks, protecting them from enfilading fire.

A noncommissioned officer or soldier placed on the directiug flank of each subdivision of a column of troops, or at the end of a line, to mark the pivots, formations, marches, and alignments in tactics. Farrow. Guide bar (Mach.), the part of a steam engine on which the crosshead slides, and by which the motion of the p…

(a) To regard with passionate affection. (b) (Mil.) To hover around; as, to hang upon the flanks of a retreating enemy.

A disease of horses, characterized by difficult breathing, with heaving of the flank, wheezing, flatulency, and a peculiar cough; broken wind.

with alternate long and short faces, with salient and receding angles, each face giving a flanking fire along the front of the next.

abiting the region of the Rocky Mountains. It is brownish gray, reddish on the breast and flanks, and white below. Called also swift fox.