boulevard

English borrowed boulevard from French, which took it from Middle French forms like boulevard and bollewerc, meaning 'rampart.' That word traces back to Middle High German bolewerc or Middle Dutch bolwerk, meaning 'bulwark, bastion.'

The word began as a term for a defensive wall or rampart, and only later came to describe the broad street that often replaced such fortifications.

Boulevard is a doublet of bulwark — the two English words descend from the same Germanic root but arrived by different paths.