Sponson

1. n. One of the armored projections fitted with gun ports, used on modern war vessels.
2. n. One of the triangular platforms in front of, and abaft, the paddle boxes of a steamboat.
3. n. One of the slanting supports under the guards of a steamboat.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.