prisoner's base

noun

any of various children's games in which each of two teams has a home base where members of the opposing team are kept prisoner after being tagged or caught and from which they can be freed only in specified ways.

Origin of prisoner's base

1590–1600; compare late Middle English bace prisoner's base, perhaps from the phrase bringen bas to lay low, cause to surrender; later taken as an assimilated form of bars, plural of bar¹, or as base¹ (though the sense “goal or starting point” originated with this game)

Also called prison base.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

British Dictionary definitions for prisoner's base

prisoner's base

noun

a children's game involving two teams, members of which chase and capture each other to increase the number of children in their own base

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012