These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'crenellated.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback .

The misty mountain ridges and the crenellated ramparts snaking along them as far as the eye could see were beautiful.

The sturdy, crenellated fortress, a symbol of might and power, was commissioned by the King after his conquest of Wales.

History and Etymology for crenellated

from past participle of crenellate "to furnish with crenellations," borrowed (with -ate entry 3 replacing -é) from French crenelé "having crenellations," going back to Old French quernelé, from crenel, quernel "crenellation" (from cren, cran "notch"—going back to Gallo-Romance *crēn- or *crĭn-, of uncertain origin— + -el, diminutive suffix) + -é -ee entry 1

Note: While French appears to have reflexes of a Romance masculine noun, a feminine noun is evident in Franco-Provençal, Sursilvan (Rhaeto-Romance dialect), and Upper Italian dialects. Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (2.2. pp. 1339-42) sees the noun as a derivative of a verb *crĭnare "to split," putatively from Gaulish; but the sole basis of this hypothesis is the Old Irish verb ara-chrin "(it) decays, fails, withers" (with an infixed neuter singular pronoun), the etymology of which is quite uncertain. If the base is *crin- "sift, shake, separate" (see Stefan Schumacher, Die Keltischen Primärverben, Innsbruck, 2004, pp. 420-22), there can be no connection with "split" or "notch." Pace Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, there is no verb crenare in the Reichenau Glosses.