enfilade
Americannoun
-
Military.
-
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.
-
the fire thus directed.
-
-
Architecture.
-
an axial arrangement of doorways connecting a suite of rooms with a vista down the whole length of the suite.
-
an axial arrangement of mirrors on opposite sides of a room so as to give an effect of an infinitely long vista.
-
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
-
to subject (a position or formation) to fire from a flank
-
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.
The show, which is organized by Aperture in partnership with Kwame S. Brathwaite, Brathwaite’s son and director of the Kwame Brathwaite Archive, is arranged in three galleries along an enfilade.
From New York Times • Nov. 23, 2022
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
He braced himself for one of Lillian’s cold, puissant lectures to enfilade the dispirited citadel of his self-respect.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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.
