fence time (fenstim)

Same as close-time. [Eng.] IMG:content-1212.jpg:[blocks in formation] A roade made very fensible with strong wals. Hakluyt's Voyages , II. 132. First she them led up to the Castle wall, That was so high as foe might not it clime, And all so faire and fensible with all. Spenser, F. Q., II. ix. 21. Let fencible men, each party in its own range of streets, keep watch and ward all night. Carlyle , French Rev., I. v. 4. 2. Pertaining to or composed of fencibles. The fencible corps were a species of militia, raised for the defense of particular districts, from which several of them could not by the conditions of their institution be detached. The first were raised in Argyles hire, in 1759. Grose, Mil. Antiq., p. 164. Fencible cavalry, formerly, in England, a mounted corps of fencibles. They seem to have corresponded to the body afterward called yeomanry. II. n. A soldier enlisted for defense against invasion, and not liable to serve abroad: genrenerally in the plural: as, the War wicks hire fen cibles. The most prominent of these objectionable estimates was that of the Manx fencibles. Windham, Speech on Army Estimates, Feb. 26, 1806.