embankment

Etymology

embank + -ment

noun

1. a long mound of earth, stone, or similar material, usually built for purposes such as to hold back or store water, for protection from weather or enemies, or to support a road or railway.
   The work to be done under these specifications consists in furnishing all materials and erecting a stone embankment, an earth embankment, and a wharf. The stone embankment will contain about 216,000 tons of stone; the earth embankment about 285,000 cubic yards of broken stone, sand, or other suitable material; and the wharf will contain 501,320 feet of timber, and 802 piles, together with the requisite quantity of cast iron mooring bits, wrought iron spikes, bolts, etc. 1886, anonymous author, California Legislature Journal Appendix
   Sink a trench so the pipe of your water-works will be below ground; have the pump and the mules which work it at such a point and so defended by an epaulement or traverse, or some other defensive embankment, as to shield them. 1897, anonymous author, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, U.S. Government Printing Office, pages 981–
   For thousands of years, societies have stored water, altered river flow, and transformed environments to increase food production or achieve other social or economic goals. The oldest known dam, a small earth embankment structure built about six thousand years ago at Jawa in present-day Jordan, was designed to capture rainfall and increase agricultural production. 2006, David P. Billington, Donald Conrad Jackson, Big Dams of the New Deal Era, University of Oklahoma Press