point d'appui

English

Etymology

French point d’appui

Noun

point d'appui (plural points d'appui)

1. (military) A given point or body upon which troops are formed, or by which they are marched in line or column.
   • 1795, Rules and Regulations for the Cavalry, Adjutant General's Office, page 364,

     Marched from the left, and to deployer to the left.—In which caſe the right squadron moves ſtreight forward to the point d'appui marked by the Quarter Maſter, &c. &c.

   • 1911, The Royal Engineers Journal, page 122:

     The attacking artillery, firing at a point d'appui at long range, cannot be said to be immobilized, because it has the power of diverting its fire to neighbouring points d'appui; […] .

2. (military) An advantageous defensive support; a foothold.
   • 1989, Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Grand Synthesis: A Study of Being, Thought, and History, State University of New York Press, page 40,

     Its intention and its method is to "stand back from natural objects, leaving them as they are and adjusting ourselves to them," and its point d'appui and point de depart is sense experience (PhN §246 Zusatz).

   • 2009, R. S. K. Barnes, Peter P. Calow, P. J. W. Olive, D. W. Golding, J. I. Spicer, The Invertebrates: A Synthesis, Wiley, page 252:

     If, on the other hand, the points d'appui are in regions of longitudinal muscle contraction so that the fixed body regions are at their shortest, the animal will move in the opposite direction to the wave, the wave is said to be retrograde.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “point d'appui”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)