stockade
Americannoun
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Fortification. a defensive barrier consisting of strong posts or timbers fixed upright in the ground.
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an enclosure or pen made with posts and stakes.
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U.S. Military. a prison for military personnel.
verb (used with object)
noun
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an enclosure or barrier of stakes and timbers
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a military prison or detention area
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stockadesimple
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stockadessimple
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have stockadedperfect
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has stockadedperfect
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am stockadingprogressive
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are stockadingprogressive
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is stockadingprogressive
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have been stockadingperfect progressive
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has been stockadingperfect progressive
Past
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stockadedsimple
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had stockadedperfect
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was stockadingprogressive
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were stockadingprogressive
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had been stockadingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stockade
1605–15; < Middle French estocade, variant of estacade < Spanish estacada. See stake 1, -ade 1
Explanation
A stockade is an enclosed pen used to herd cattle and other livestock. Stockades can also house people, in the sense of a penal camp. In both cases, the treatment tends to be on the rough side. Stockades are also built as a means of protection or defense. Fun fact: Did you know that one of the most famous stockades in America was the original Wall Street in New Amsterdam — that is, the protective wall of wooden stakes dug into the ground that separated the northernmost part of the Dutch settlement from Native American territory? Or at least it did until the Dutch, in need of firewood, chopped it down.
Vocabulary lists containing stockade
Beowulf
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the summer of 2008, Epstein began serving his sentence at the Palm Beach County stockade.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
“It was like you’d gone back into the stockade and you could shut the gate and get on with the work.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2025
Rejecting a First Amendment challenge, the court upheld Private Wilson’s conviction and sentence to four months in the stockade, a bad-conduct discharge, and other penalties.
From Salon ● Apr. 6, 2025
He talked back to Naval superiors when he served during World War II and got tossed in the stockade.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 25, 2023
On foot and swiftly he went up toward the stockade where swine were penned in hundreds, and at night the guardian of the swine, the forester, slept under arms on duty for his masters.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
It needs foreign aid to replenish its stockades and help even the odds.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
In the later stages of Cahokia, the ruling class surrounded themselves with fortified wooden stockades, including a two-mile long wall that enclosed Monks Mound.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2022
This applies universally but, with faith — I assume thanks to millennia of stakes, stockades and harangues — the tiptoeing impulse is strong.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022
The term has also been synonymous with prisoner of war camps and stockades.
From Fox News ● Oct. 28, 2021
They built neither stockades nor trenches around their camps.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
I lingered until Michaela stockaded me in upturned chairs and dragged back to the flat.
From The Verge ● Mar. 31, 2018
The bustling scene of the stockaded fur-trading post at Fort Laramie was painted by Alfred Jacob Miller in 1837, when the Rocky Mountain fur trade had already passed its peak.
From Time Magazine Archive
Show me round your little kingdom, Sergeant Crusoe," ordered the captain, "the stockaded hut and the wheat patch and the goat pen, and so on.
From Time Magazine Archive
The common folk were in huts and tents; the chiefs lived in great stockaded timber halls.
From A Short History of the World by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
When Lewis and Clarke came to the mouth of the Columbia River she was looking out over the Pacific from her stockaded walls and Resanof was sailing to search for locations for new colonies.
From The Story of Sitka The Historic Outpost of the Northwest Coast by Andrews, Clarence Leroy
He had wasted no time stockading huts or seeding patches.
From Time Magazine Archive
We remained here about three months, building and stockading our winter quarters, drilling and doing picket duty, and making occasional raids when we felt sure that the enemy was a safe distance from us.
From A Raw Recruit's War Experiences by Nickerson, Ansel D.
Maha Nemiow had moved directly upon Prome; advancing slowly, and constantly stockading himself.
From On the Irrawaddy A Story of the First Burmese War by Overend, William Heysham
Twenty-four machines, captured from the Saracens by St. Lewis in his first partial success on the Nile, afforded material for stockading his whole camp.
From The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 by Yule, Henry
The night was very dark, and the wind howled and sang through the stockading, and none seemed to be about the place.
From Wulfric the Weapon Thane by Whistler, Charles W. (Charles Watts)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
