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
- unenfiladed adjective
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.
Traveling there, Ireland photographed enfiladed rooms in knotty pine, and glass-front built-ins abandoned to a lone rifle and scant rows of books.
From New York Times
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
But the rules weren’t that obtrusive — if you can handle a supermarket aisle in these bad new days, you can handle an enfilade of galleries.
From New York Times
He braced himself for one of Lillian’s cold, puissant lectures to enfilade the dispirited citadel of his self-respect.
From Literature
Up ahead, the plesiosaur riders were probably readying their artillery, or simply loading their muskets to enfilade them as soon as they were in range.
From Literature
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.
