corkscrew stake

English

Soldier carrying corkscrew stakes during World War I

Noun

corkscrew stake (plural corkscrew stakes)

1. (military) A steel stake, used for barbed-wire defences, the lower half of which is corkscrew-shaped, to enable it to be screwed into the ground.
   • 1930, Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, London: Faber and Faber, page 337 (Faber Paper 1972 edition):

     So far we had done nothing except file past a tool-dump, where men had collected picks, shovels, coils of wire and corkscrew stakes.

Synonyms

• screw picket

Further reading

• Screw picket on Wikipedia.Wikipedia