• (British) IPA: /ˈbʊl.wək/
• (America) enPR bo͝ol'wərk, IPA: /ˈbʊl.wɝk/, /ˈbʊl.wɔɹk/

bulwark (plural bulwarks)

1. A defensive wall or rampart.
2. A defense or safeguard.

   • The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of our island.

3. A breakwater.
4. (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
   • 1851 November 13, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299 ↗:

     Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.

5. (figurative) Any means of defence or security.

• French: rempart
• German: Bollwerk
• Italian: baluardo
• Portuguese: baluarte
• Russian: вал
• Spanish: baluarte

• German: Bollwerk
• Portuguese: baluarte
• Russian: опло́т
• Spanish: baluarte

• French: bastingage
• German: Schanzkleid
• Italian: impavesata
• Portuguese: amurada
• Russian: фальшбо́рт
• Spanish: amurada

bulwark (bulwarks, present participle bulwarking; past and past participle bulwarked)

1. (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
2. (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.