Brewer's: Glacis

The sloping mass on the outer edge of the covered way in fortification. Immediately without the “ditches” of the place fortified, there is a road of communication all round the fortress (about thirty feet wide), having on its exterior edge a covered mass of earth eight feet high, sloping off gently towards the open country. The road is technically called the covered way, and the sloping mass the glacis.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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