retrenchment

1. (military, dated) A defensive work constructed within a fortification to make it more defensible by allowing defenders to retreat into and fight from it even after the enemy has taken the outer work.Examples: "The Half-Moon is a Work always raiſed before the Baſtion's Point, being ſo named from the Lowneſs of its Gorges Cavity, &c. and is to ſecure the Two Faces of the Baſtion; but when the Faces have but a weak Defence from the Ravelin, theſe Works are ſoon made uſeleſs or ruined, and give the Beſieged an opportunity of Lodgment, and may ſerve for Batteries and Flanks againſt the oppoſing Baſtions; however they may be retrenched by Traverſes, yet they will not fail to attack entirely in the Face, or where you have your laſt Retrenchment, alſo that called the Counterguard runs the like Hazard."; "[I]f there is one Retrenchment in a Work, it is generally thought ſufficient; but it happens much oftener than there is none at all; ſo that one might be apt to think, a Defence like that we have been explaining is only chimerical, if the Sieges of Vienna and Candy, both by the Turks, were not inſtances of the contrary, where there was hardly an inch of Ground either within or without thoſe two Towns, as far as the Extremities of the Glacis, and even beyond them, but what was retrenched and countermined."; "The gate-way of the north ſide, from whence the garriſon got their water, was near the n. w. angle, and about 80 yards from the river; on the ſide of which, oppoſite to the gate, they threw up a retrenchment, in which they kept a guard to protect the water-carriers."dated

1. (especially politics) The adoption of a defensive and hostile posture; refusal to compromise, radicalization.Examples: "Confronted by their practices again and again, these individuals and organizations in the gay community have made token gestures to appease the demands of people of color, while in the long run these confrontations have resulted in retrenchment of attitudes and stereotypes by gay whites."; "Retrenchment—on the left and the right—led to exclusivist, mutually recriminating positions on the film that made reasoned debate almost impossible, as opponents drowned each other out with competing narratives of “victimization” and “pariah” status."; "But at the Seventeenth CCP Congress in 2008 Zeng Qinghong retired, and beginning the very next year the CCP began a deep political retrenchment, halting most of the political reforms, and reverted to old-style harsh and repressive rule."countableespeciallyuncountable