Mid 18th century: French, 'a rampart' (later 'a promenade on the site of one'), from German Bollwerk (see bulwark).

• The first boulevards referred to in English were in Paris, in the mid 18th century. They were wide avenues planted with trees, originally on the top of demolished fortifications. The word boulevard then meant ‘the horizontal portion of a rampart’ in French. It derives from the same German and Dutch word as bulwark (Late Middle English), and its elements are related to bole (ME from Old Norse), ‘the stem or trunk of a tree’, and work. The French boulevard also gave us the boulevardier, a person who frequented the boulevards, and so a wealthy, fashionable socialite, in the late 19th century.