Etymology

Noun

1. a cylindrical basket or cage of wicker which was filled with earth or stones and used in fortifications and other engineering work (a precursor to the sandbag).
2. a woven wire mesh unit, sometimes rectangular, made from a continuous mesh panel and filled with stones sometimes coated with polyvinyl chloride
3. a porous metal cylinder filled with stones and used in a variety of civil engineering contexts, especially in the construction of retaining walls, the reinforcing of steep slopes, or in the prevention of erosion in river banks
4. a knickknack, objet d’art, curiosity, collectable

Quotations

• 1774: The meaning of the word Gabion, as it is used in the poem, is not to be sought for in any dictionary. It was of the venerable old gentleman Mr Ruthven's own coining, and it was well enough understood among his select friends, to mean nothing else but the miscellaneous curiosities in his closet humorously described in the poem. — James Cant, introduction to The Muses Threnodie p. vi, quoted and cited in Reliquiae Trotcosiensis by Sir Walter Scott (p.6 of the 2004, Edinburgh University Press edition)
• Reliquiae Trotcosienses: Or, the Gabions of the Late Jonathan Oldbuck Esq. of Monkbarns — title of unfinished novel by Sir Walter Scott

See also

• sap — several mentions of gabions in the context of fortifications