fence

[Abbrev. from defence.]

1. That which fends off attack or danger; a defense; a protection; a cover; security; shield.

Let us be backed with God and with the seas,
Which he hath given for fence impregnable.

A fence betwixt us and the victor's wrath.

2. An inclosure about a field or other space, or about any object; especially, an inclosing structure of wood, iron, or other material, intended to prevent intrusion from without or straying from within.

Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold.

Note: In England a hedge, ditch, or wall, as well as a structure of boards, palings, or rails, is called a fence.

3. (Locks) A projection on the bolt, which passes through the tumbler gates in locking and unlocking.

4. Self-defense by the use of the sword; the art and practice of fencing and sword play; hence, skill in debate and repartee. See Fencing.

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
That hath so well been taught her dazzing fence.

Of dauntless courage and consummate skill in fence.

5. A receiver of stolen goods, or a place where they are received. [Slang] Mayhew.

Fence month (Forest Law), the month in which female deer are fawning, when hunting is prohibited. Bullokar. -- Fence roof, a covering for defense. «They fitted their shields close to one another in manner of a fence roof.» Holland. -- Fence time, the breeding time of fish or game, when they should not be killed. -- Rail fence, a fence made of rails, sometimes supported by posts. -- Ring fence, a fence which encircles a large area, or a whole estate, within one inclosure. -- Worm fence, a zigzag fence composed of rails crossing one another at their ends; -- called also snake fence, or Virginia rail fence. -- To be on the fence, to be undecided or uncommitted in respect to two opposing parties or policies. [Colloq.]

Fence
v. t.

[imp. & p. p. Fenced (fĕnst); p. pr. & vb. n. Fencing (fĕn"sĭng).]

1. To fend off danger from; to give security to; to protect; to guard.

To fence my ear against thy sorceries.

2. To inclose with a fence or other protection; to secure by an inclosure.

O thou wall! . . . dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens.

A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees.

To fence the tables (Scot. Church), to make a solemn address to those who present themselves to commune at the Lord's supper, on the feelings appropriate to the service, in order to hinder, so far as possible, those who are unworthy from approaching the table. McCheyne.

Fence
v. i.

1. To make a defense; to guard one's self of anything, as against an attack; to give protection or security, as by a fence.

Vice is the more stubborn as well as the more dangerous evil, and therefore, in the first place, to be fenced against.

2. To practice the art of attack and defense with the sword or with the foil, esp. with the smallsword, using the point only.

He will fence with his own shadow.

3. Hence, to fight or dispute in the manner of fencers, that is, by thrusting, guarding, parrying, etc.

They fence and push, and, pushing, loudly roar;
Their dewlaps and their sides are bat Dryden.

As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.

Tennyson.

---

Idioms beginning with fence:
fence with

See also mend one's fences; on the fence; straddle the fence.

n.

1. A sequence of one or more distinguished (out-of-band) characters (or other data items), used to delimit a piece of data intended to be treated as a unit (the computer-science literature calls this a sentinel). The NUL (ASCII 0000000) character that terminates strings in C is a fence. Hex FF is also (though slightly less frequently) used this way. See zigamorph.

2. An extra data value inserted in an array or other data structure in order to allow some normal test on the array's contents also to function as a termination test. For example, a highly optimized routine for finding a value in an array might artificially place a copy of the value to be searched for after the last slot of the array, thus allowing the main search loop to search for the value without having to check at each pass whether the end of the array had been reached.

3. [among users of optimizing compilers] Any technique, usually exploiting knowledge about the compiler, that blocks certain optimizations. Used when explicit mechanisms are not available or are overkill. Typically a hack: “I call a dummy procedure there to force a flush of the optimizer's register-coloring info” can be expressed by the shorter “That's a fence procedure”.