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)
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stockades,
present (3rd person singular)
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stockaded,
past participle, past
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stockading
present participle
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
-
have been stockadingperfect progressive
-
has been stockadingperfect progressive
Past
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stockadedsimple
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had stockadedperfect
-
was stockadingprogressive
-
were stockadingprogressive
-
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:
Dozens of men, women and children died in the surprise attack, but, respecting kinship ties, the attacking Mohawks spared all save one of the 30 pro-English Mohawks inside the stockade.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
The Times, taking the opposite line, reported that Glenn and another student, Brendon Barr, were adjudged “incorrigible” and clocked in a stockade as a last resort.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2024
Most of us do not want to see an ex-president pilloried or put in the stockade, literally or metaphorically.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2024
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
We stood shoulder to shoulder for some time; until, my eye being drawn by a motion in the far part of the stockade, I saw that there was activity at the gates.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Those trenches helped the team identify post holes that in turn led to the pattern of holes and a stockade trench that matched stockades at other 18th-century military sites, Crawmer said.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2022
Overcrowding inside these stockades saw the spread of tuberculosis and blastomycosis, caused by a soil-borne fungus, along with iron-deficiency anemia.
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
Each night he walked atop the Wall with Lady Melisandre, and during the days he visited the stockades, picking captives out for the red woman to question.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
I lingered until Michaela stockaded me in upturned chairs and dragged back to the flat.
From The Verge ● Mar. 31, 2018
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 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
From that time he took care that either Barney or himself should be always in the stockaded camp.
From Samba A Story of the Rubber Slaves of the Congo by Herbert Strang
I asked, for I recalled no stockaded fortress, large or small.
From Solomon by Constance Fenimore Woolson
He had wasted no time stockading huts or seeding patches.
From Time Magazine Archive
The red flames gathered brightness every moment, lighting up two sides of the stockading, in the midst of which the hall stood.
From A Prince of Cornwall A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex by Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler
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 William Heysham Overend
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 Henry Yule
The pioneers had been sent up, and we commenced intrenching and stockading the hill round the huts, which were in number about twenty.
From Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp Late a Lieut. in His Majesty's 87th Regiment by John Shipp
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
