bulwark

1. 1.

   defend with a bulwark

   Broaderdefend

Other forms of bulwark

plural

bulwarks·

past tense

bulwarked·

present participle

bulwarking·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about bulwark

What does bulwark mean?

bulwark means "an embankment built around a space for defensive purposes". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in bulwark?

bulwark has 2 syllables: bul-wark. The stress falls on "bul". In IPA it is /ˈbʊlwɚk/.

What is another word for bulwark?

Close synonyms include rampart, wall, breakwater, groin, groyne. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is bulwark a common word?

bulwark is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.