Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The art or science of besieging towns.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The art of siege warfare, namely, that of conducting or resisting a siege.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowed from Ancient Greek πολιορκητικα (poliorkētika, "things related to sieges"), neuter plural of πολιορκητικος (poliorkētikos). Compare poliorcetic.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word poliorcetics.

Examples

  • Modem military thinkers may make a tripartite classification of topics of military thought into strategy, military operations, and tactics, but such categories were alien to the Byzantines, who knew of such ones as strategy, tactics, stratagems, poliorcetics or the art of besieging a city, and naval warfare.

    De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History » The Strategy of Heraclius 2010

  • The multitude of methods involved in taking a strongpoint - starving, mining, storming, bombardment, treachery, bribery, ruse and, most usually of all, negotiations - indicate how large a branch of conflict poliorcetics siege warfare is it is also the most important part.

    De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History » The Myths of Medieval Warfare 2010

  • But, as has been pointed out, the details recorded are "the commonplaces of poliorcetics," and may have been borrowed by Josephus from some military text-book and neatly applied.

    Josephus Norman Bentwich 1927

  • But, as has been pointed out, the details recorded are “the commonplaces of poliorcetics,” and may have been borrowed by Josephus from some military text-book and neatly applied.

    Josephus Bentwich, Norman 1914

  • Were it merely with a view to more effectual carnage, this art (however simple and gross at first) opened at length into wide scientific arts, into strategies, into tactics, into castrametation, into poliorcetics, and all the processes through which the first rude efforts of martial cunning finally connect themselves with the exquisite resources of science.

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 2 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • Were it merely with a view to more effectual carnage, this art (however simple and gross at first) opened at length into wide scientific arts, into strategies, into tactics, into castrametation, into poliorcetics, and all the processes through which the first rude efforts of martial cunning finally connect themselves with the exquisite resources of science.

    Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers Thomas De Quincey 1822

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • The Century Dictionary (1914) lists only pahl-ee-or-SEE-tiks. Webster's New International, second edition (1934), lists pahl-ee-or-SET-iks first, followed by -SEE-. — The Orthoepist

    June 9, 2010

  • Will consult my New Century Dictionary, when I run across it, to see what it has to say about poliorcetics.

    June 9, 2010