abbatis

Updated: June 10, 2025

There is hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the Abbatis et eruditae colloquium is a Molière character. It should be noticed how well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he sees them. In 'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment that Eutrapelus is an artist.

Johan Huizinga - Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

The breastwork was raised eight feet high, and the ground before it covered with an abbatis, of felled trees, with their boughs pointing outwards, and projecting in such a manner as to render the intrenchment almost inaccessible.

T. (Tobias) Smollett - The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. : Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II.