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Fire Escape Partners
3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (noun, intransitive verb)
[BIV-oo-ak', BIV-wak] 
noun
1. a temporary encampment often without shelter or protection, especially quarters built by the army for soldiers: "I never slept well on the front, but the night we spent in a muddy bivouac across enemy lines was the first completely sleepless night."
intransitive verb
2. to rest or encamp for the night without tents or other shelter: "I wish we had turned back earlier -- now we're forced to bivouac on the first flat, dry spot we can find."
other verb forms: bivouacked, bivouacking, bivouacs
Origin:
Approximately 1702; from French, 'bivouac'; probably from Low German, 'biwake' (bi: by + wake: watch). In Action:
"The only way to stay warm was to keep moving. However, I really couldn't see the trail worth a darn, and the steep Greenpicker - which has seen heavy horse traffic - has one of the roughest and most eroded trail segments in the park. My only alternative to stumbling up it in the dark was to heap up a mound of 'duff' - old leaves, pine needles and other materials from the forest floor - burrow in, and prepare for an emergency overnight bivouac. But if the rain continued or got heavier, even that last-ditch plan wouldn't work so well."
Paul McHugh. 'Hikes Gone Hair-raising: Or how a leisurely stroll can turn into a pulse-pounding life-threatener,' The San Francisco Chronicle (June 17, 2001).
"We established our bivouac along the edge of the wood so as to get some shelter for our horses. However, the boisterous north wind had dropped as quickly as it had sprung up, and the great winter stillness lay on the land from the Baltic to the Black sea. One could almost feel its cold lifeless immensity reaching up to the stars.
Our men had lighted several fires for their officers and had cleared the snow around them. There were logs of wood for seats. It was a very tolerable bivouac upon the whole, even without the exultation of victory. That we were to feel later, but at present we felt it but a stern and arduous task."
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). Russian born English novelist. 'The Warrior's Soul.' | |
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