Trivia Time

Which ancient city endured a siege in Homer's Iliad?

Test Your Knowledge

siege

American  

[seej] / sidʒ /

noun

• sieges
  plural

1. the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.

2. any prolonged or persistent effort to overcome resistance.

3. a series of illnesses, troubles, or annoyances besetting a person or group.

   a siege of head colds.

4. a prolonged period of trouble or annoyance.

5. Ornithology. Also

   1. a flock of herons.

   2. the station of a heron at prey.

6. the shelf or floor of a glassmaking furnace on which the glass pots are set.

7. Obsolete.

   1. a seat, especially one used by a person of distinction, as a throne.

   2. station as to rank or class.

---

verb (used with object)

sieged, sieging

1. to assail or assault; besiege.

idioms

1. lay siege to, to besiege.

   The army laid siege to the city for over a month.

siege British  

/ siːdʒ /

noun

1. 1. the offensive operations carried out to capture a fortified place by surrounding it, severing its communications and supply lines, and deploying weapons against it

   2. ( as modifier )

      siege warfare

2. a persistent attempt to gain something

3. a long tedious period, as of illness, etc

4. obsolete a seat or throne

5. to besiege

---

verb

1. (tr) to besiege or assail

Synonym Usage

Siege, blockade are terms for prevention of free movement to or from a place during wartime. Siege implies surrounding a city and cutting off its communications, and usually includes direct assaults on its defenses. Blockade is applied more often to naval operations that block all commerce, especially to cut off food and other supplies from defenders.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• siegeable
  adjective
• unsieged
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• sieges
  plural

Etymology

Origin of siege

First recorded in 1175–1225; (noun) Middle English sege, from Old French: “seat,” noun derivative of siegier, from unattested Vulgar Latin sedicāre “to set,” derivative of Latin sedēre “to sit” ( see sit ¹); (verb) Middle English segen, derivative of the noun

Explanation

Your city is under siege if it is surrounded on all sides by an opposing force on attack. Think of a castle surrounded by a legion of armed knights. Like many military words, siege can be used metaphorically. If you start getting thousands of e-mail messages trying to sell you canned meat, you might feel like you're under a siege of spam selling spam. In this case, you have been besieged by spam. And even more unfortunately, if you are having a siege of bad luck, you have been besieged by bad luck.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

siege sieges sieged sieging

When the capital came under siege by Islamist fighters, they managed to impose a partial blockade there and total blockades elsewhere including the city of Ségou.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

The siege is the subject of Anthony Kaldellis’s “1453: The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

That landmark picture features McElwee, then in his mid-30s, as he tries to chronicle the exploits of Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who laid siege to the South during the Civil War.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026

Many fear the merger will result in massive job cuts in an industry that has been under siege from consolidations and layoffs.

From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026

Others were on guard, as if expecting a siege at any moment.

From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers

Modern battlefields are increasingly urban; sieges increasingly prolonged; hunger increasingly systematic.

From Slate ● Nov. 19, 2025

We stretch beyond the cathedral and onto Pamplona’s city walls, where the stone holds centuries of sieges, prayers, and heartbreak.

From Salon ● Nov. 8, 2025

Human Rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that "sieges" were illegal under international law.

From Reuters ● Oct. 11, 2023

The UN human rights chief has said sieges are illegal under international law.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2023

For three thousand years, this little promontory has known sieges.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

On February 28, 1993, law enforcement sieged Mount Carmel Center ranch, the compound that belonged to Koresh and his religious cult.

From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2023

And a subsequent screening he met several audience members who said they were from Mariupol and that their relatives were escaping the sieged city at the same time he was.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 23, 2023

“There is quite a lot of people still remaining in the absolutely sieged city of Mariupol in some inhumane conditions,” he said during a video briefing.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 4, 2022

Over these past weekends, many of my friends have attended medical first aid courses, survival courses on how to survive in an occupied or sieged city.

From Slate ● Feb. 18, 2022

We're sieged in by planes and ground forces of Savannah Fortress.

From The Night of the Long Knives by Virgil Finlay

It has also levied some sanctions on those doing the sieging.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 24, 2022

On the other hand, that this mode of sieging by red-hot balls seems a little unusual; for the rest, that he has himself no order or intention but that of resisting to the last.'

From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 12 by Thomas Carlyle

The War, since Friedrich got out of it, does not abate in animosity, nor want for bloodshed, battle and sieging; but offers little now memorable.

From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 16 by Thomas Carlyle

As it is, the Austrian Army is not annihilated; only bottled into Prag, and will need sieging.

From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18 by Thomas Carlyle

But Clive's keen eyes discerned stuff for better things than the sieging of Indian forts in the young volunteer.

From A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III by Justin McCarthy

Related Words

• barricade
• closure
• encirclement
• restriction
• roadblock
• stoppage