Maginot line

American  

[mazh-uh-noh, ma-zhee-noh] / ˈmæʒ əˌnoʊ, ma ʒiˈnoʊ /

noun

1. a zone of heavy defensive fortifications erected by France along its eastern border in the years preceding World War II, but outflanked in 1940 when the German army attacked through Belgium.

2. any elaborate line of defense or set of barriers.

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Maginot line British  

/ ˈmæʒɪˌnəʊ, maʒino /

noun

1. a line of fortifications built by France to defend its border with Germany prior to World War II; it proved ineffective against the German invasion

2. any line of defence in which blind confidence is placed

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Maginot line Cultural  

1. A chain of defensive fortifications built by France on its eastern border between World War I and World War II. The Maginot line was designed to stop any future invasion by Germany, but it was never completed. In World War II, the Germans conquered France by going around the Maginot line to the north.

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The expression Maginot mentality refers to any military strategy that is exclusively defensive and therefore flawed. It also refers to military planning that is aimed at the past. This way of thinking is sometimes referred to as “fighting the last war.”

Etymology

Origin of Maginot line

1925–30; after André Maginot (1877–1932), French minister of war

Example Sentences

When Hitler’s Nazi Germany was quickly defeating European nations, Americans believed we were still safe because Hitler would not dare invade France, the strongest army in Europe, protected by the Maginot Line.

From Washington Post

Unfortunately, this conjecture is likely to be merely a second rhetorical Maginot Line.

From Washington Post

The general’s championing of visionary weapons to prepare for this “big fight” also struck me as fanciful, like the failed security the French once found in their Maginot Line.

From Washington Post

In 2006 he derided the Bush administration’s homeland missile defense system as a modern-day Maginot line — a defense that is confidently relied upon despite being unreliable.

From Seattle Times

The post-epidemic effects that give historians of medicine the most pause in considering what the post-COVID world will be like are the ones that Nancy Tomes, in an interview, compared to the Maginot line—the massive and sophisticated set of fortifications, built by France in the 1930s to keep Germany out, that Germany bypassed in 1940 by invading through Belgium at a part of the line that was poorly defended.

From Slate