A defensive wall or rampart.
A defense or safeguard.
A breakwater.
Any means of defence or security.
The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
To provide protection of defense for something.
To disappoint; to betray or fail somebody
To reduce one's level of effort.
To soften in tempering.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see let, down.
To allow to descend.
To lengthen by undoing and resewing a hem.