bartisan

• bartizan

Borrowed from Middle Scots bartisan, variant of bartising, from Middle English bretasynge. Doublet of bratticing.

• IPA^(key): /bɑːtɪˈzæn/

bartisan (plural bartisans)

1. (architecture) A parapet with battlements projecting from the top of a tower in a castle or church.
   • 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter 14, in The Shadow of the Torturer:

     There were flambeaux on staggering poles every ten strides or so, and at intervals of about a hundred strides, bartizans whose guardroom windows glared like fireworks clung to the bridge piers.

   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:

     she soon found it had no communication with any other part of the battlements, being an isolated bartisan, or balcony, secured, as usual, by a parapet, with embrasures, at which a few archers might be stationed for defending the turret, and flanking with their shot the wall of the castle on that side.