prisoner's base

American  

noun

1. 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.

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prisoner's base British  

noun

1. 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

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Etymology

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 bar ¹, or as base ¹ (though the sense “goal or starting point” originated with this game)

Example Sentences

Every day we played a game called prisoner's base, which was all running and shouting and shoving and catching.

From "Homesick" by Jean Fritz

No more worrying about Ian Forbes or the king of England or prisoner’s base.

From "Homesick" by Jean Fritz

They are very fond of "prisoner's base," "fox and geese," and "tag."

From Highroads of Geography Introductory Book: Round the World with Father by Anonymous

His boyish impulses lay with the cricketers, the minnow-catchers, the players of prisoner’s base, the joyous patrons of well-worn “pitch” and gurgling brook.

From The Revellers by Tracy, Louis

What did a boy that had lived on Wildcat Creek, in the Indian Reserve, know about playing bull-pen, or prisoner’s base, or shinny?

From The Hoosier School-boy by Eggleston, Edward