DCHP-1 Online
rampart (usually plural) Northwest 
1 n. a high, precipitous stretch of river bank, as found on either side of a steep gorge; also, the gorge itself.
- 1851 (1853) Tuesday 17th. Yesterday and today we have been passing through what they call the ramparts--rocks and steep banks along the river. . . .
- 1910 Cast high on a rampart by a thrust of the waters lay the stern half of their canoe. . . .
- 1940 . . . after forty miles more came to the ramparts, a large canyon or gorge where for seven miles the river flows between perpendicular cliffs of limestone from one hundred to two hundred feet high. The channel is very deep here--three hundred feet in places.
2 n. Ramparts, the name given locally to several such gorges.
- 1910 The Ramparts is "a local name employed by the traders to designate a contracted walled valley or canon." (The term has been applied to similar conditions on the Mackenzie, the Yukon and the Porcupine.)
- 1929 The Company moved up the Porcupine river to the Ramparts.
- 1965 The scenery till well down near the Ramparts [Mackenzie R.] is dull. . . .
3 n. the precipitous terrain adjacent to such gorges.
- 1942 Born of ramparts in the Rockies, silver-capped with ancient snows,/ Melting glaciers there are feeding the mighty Fraser as it grows.
- 1958 Into the brooding hills known as the Lower Ramparts, where the river channels were gathered into a single rustling gorge.
- 1851 (1853) Tuesday 17th. Yesterday and today we have been passing through what they call the ramparts--rocks and steep banks along the river. . . .