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
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
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
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
“Too well educated for his own good” was what Hanako’s father was accused of, and he spent seven months in the stockade.
From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata
It needs foreign aid to replenish its stockades and help even the odds.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
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
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
There was, as it happened, very little to prevent him doing it, and stockaded factories, as well as stranded steamboats, have been looted in Western Africa.
From For Jacinta by Bindloss, Harold
He still further strengthened the fort during this period, and when he left he reported that "Fort Niagara and its buildings were completed and its covered ways stockaded."
From The Niagara River by Hulbert, Archer Butler
He had wasted no time stockading huts or seeding patches.
From Time Magazine Archive
The rest of the army were armed with swords and spears, and carried implements for stockading and entrenching.
From On the Irrawaddy A Story of the First Burmese War by Overend, William Heysham
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
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.
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 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.
