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.

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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

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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

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

Now, Yedlin has a baby daughter named Seneca — which is also a nod to the Roman philosopher and predominantly Black village sieged in the 1800s to build Central Park in New York.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 15, 2022

“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

If Atla-Hi had been able to do anything more for us—that is, if they hadn't been sieged in, I mean—they'd sure as anything have pulled us in.

From The Night of the Long Knives by Finlay, Virgil

Related Words

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