barricade

[bar-i-keyd, bar-i-keyd]

noun

1. a defensive barrier hastily constructed, as in a street, to stop an enemy.

2. any barrier that obstructs passage.

verb (used with object)

barricaded, barricading 

1. to obstruct or block with a barricade.

   barricading the streets to prevent an attack.

2. to shut in and defend with or as if with a barricade.

   The rebels had barricaded themselves in the old city.

   Synonyms: fortify

barricade

/ ˈbærɪˌkeɪd, ˌbærɪˈkeɪd /

noun

1. a barrier for defence, esp one erected hastily, as during street fighting

verb

1. to erect a barricade across (an entrance, passageway, etc) or at points of access to (a room, district of a town, etc)

   they barricaded the door

2. (usually passive) to obstruct; block

   his mind was barricaded against new ideas

Other Word Forms

• barricader noun
• unbarricade verb (used with object)

Word History and Origins

Origin of barricade¹

1585–95; < French, equivalent to barrique barrel (< Gascon ) + -ade -ade ¹; early barricades in Paris were often composed of barrels

Word History and Origins

Origin of barricade¹

C17: from Old French, from barriquer to barricade, from barrique a barrel, from Spanish barrica , from barril _barrel

Synonym Study

See bar ¹.

Example Sentences

Mediators had been sent to speak to the siblings who had barricaded themselves into the house.

Read more on BBC

Five of those staircases will eventually be fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the show’s iconic barricade where the student revolutionaries fight and die in Act 2.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Visitors have been hiking past parking-lot barricades to access Great Falls Park in Virginia and Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Around 1,700 police officers are already present in New Caledonia, where rioters have burned buildings, looted shops and set up road barricades, they added.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Protesters have set public buildings on fire, looted shops and barricaded roads.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• barrier 
• blockade 
• fence 
• rampart 
• roadblock 
• wall