different between bulwark vs buckler

English

Etymology

From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) +? work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/
• (US) enPR: bo?ol'w?rk, bo?ol'wôrk, IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/, /?b?l.w??k/

Noun

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 the 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.
5. (figuratively) Any means of defence or security.

Translations

Verb

bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)

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

English

Etymology

From Middle English bukler, bokler, bokeler, bokeleer, from Old French bocler, boucler, bucler, (French bouclier) from Vulgar Latin *buccul?rius (“bossed”), from Latin buccula (“boss”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?k.l?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b?k.l?/
• Hyphenation: buck?ler

Noun

buckler (plural bucklers)

1. One who buckles something.
   • 1986, Press Summary - Illinois Information Service (page 6724)

     Bucklers will be assigned to buckle up drivers in the morning and make sure they stay buckled up.

2. A kind of shield, of various shapes and sizes, held with a hand (usually the left) for protecting the front of the body. In the sword and buckler play of the Middle Ages in England, the buckler was a small shield, used, not to cover the body, but to stop or parry blows.
   • 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene IV, line 166.

     I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw -- ecce signum!

3. (obsolete) A shield resembling the Roman scutum. In modern usage, a smaller variety of shield is usually implied by this term.
4. (zoology) One of the large, bony, external plates found on many ganoid fishes.
5. (zoology) The anterior segment of the shell of a trilobites.
6. (nautical) A block of wood or plate of iron made to fit a hawse hole, or the circular opening in a half-port, to prevent water from entering when the vessel pitches.

Derived terms

• knee-buckler

Translations

Verb

buckler (third-person singular simple present bucklers, present participle bucklering, simple past and past participle bucklered)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To shield; to defend.