enfilade
Americannoun
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Military.
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a position of works, troops, etc., making them subject to a sweeping fire from along the length of a line of troops, a trench, a battery, etc.
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the fire thus directed.
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Architecture.
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an axial arrangement of doorways connecting a suite of rooms with a vista down the whole length of the suite.
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an axial arrangement of mirrors on opposite sides of a room so as to give an effect of an infinitely long vista.
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verb (used with object)
noun
verb
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to subject (a position or formation) to fire from a flank
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to position (troops or guns) so as to be able to fire at a flank
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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enfiladesimple
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enfiladessimple
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have enfiladedperfect
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has enfiladedperfect
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am enfiladingprogressive
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are enfiladingprogressive
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is enfiladingprogressive
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have been enfiladingperfect progressive
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has been enfiladingperfect progressive
Past
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enfiladedsimple
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had enfiladedperfect
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was enfiladingprogressive
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were enfiladingprogressive
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had been enfiladingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enfilade
1695–1705; < French, equivalent to enfil ( er ) to thread, string ( en- en- 1 + -filer, derivative of fil < Latin fīlum thread) + -ade -ade 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Brodsky, future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, lived in a single room that had been part of a palatial enfilade.
From New York Times • Sep. 12, 2021
Others are escort sprints where you have to guide a vulnerable ally through enfilade fire.
From Time • Aug. 28, 2017
Anybody in the enfilade of dove gray salons, where Christian Dior himself once trod, could feel the hand of history.
From New York Times • Jan. 26, 2010
Wright put a winter garden on one of the terraces, which, he explains, “made a space for entertaining in an enfilade with the breakfast room and the elliptical dining room.”
From Architectural Digest • Dec. 21, 2009
The guns to the right, on the Rocky Hill, would enfilade the line.
From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
