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
-
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
Several of those provisions have long been considered nonstarters for Iran, which sees its missile stockade and regional alliances as central to national security.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
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
The French counterattacked, defeating him at a hastily built stockade near Great Meadows, Pennsylvania.
From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen
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
It was similar to that fortification in size and construction, but was stockaded only on the north side.
From Vermont A Study of Independence by Rowland E. (Evans) Robinson
A pit village was usually stockaded to protect it against the assaults of foes.
From Women of England by Bartlett Burleigh James
He had wasted no time stockading huts or seeding patches.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even the women had been compelled to labour in the work of stockading, and the sufferings of all had been terrible.
From On the Irrawaddy A Story of the First Burmese War by William Heysham Overend
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
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 Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler
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 Ansel D. Nickerson
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.
