Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fence of pales forming a defense barrier or fortification.
  • noun One of the pales of such a fence.
  • noun A line of lofty steep cliffs, usually along a river.
  • transitive verb To equip or fortify with palisades or a palisade.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To surround, inclose, or fortify with a palisade or palisades.
  • noun A fence made of strong pales or stakes set firmly in the ground, forming an inclosure, or used as a defense.
  • noun A stake, of which two or more were in former times carried by dragoons, intended to be planted in the ground for defense.
  • noun A wire sustaining the hair: a feature of the head-dress of the close of the seventeenth century.
  • noun plural
  • noun A precipice of trap-rock on the western bank of the Hudson river, extending from Fort Lee northward about fifteen miles. Its height is from 200 to 500 feet. The name is also used in various other localities for formations of a similar character.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Fort.) A strong, long stake, one end of which is set firmly in the ground, and the other is sharpened; also, a fence formed of such stakes set in the ground as a means of defense.
  • noun Any fence made of pales or sharp stakes.
  • noun A line of bold cliffs, esp. one showing basaltic columns; -- usually in pl., and orig. used as the name of the cliffs on the west bank of the lower Hudson.
  • noun (Bot.) vertically elongated parenchyma cells, such as are seen beneath the epidermis of the upper surface of many leaves.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a nematoid worm (Strongylus armatus), parasitic in the blood vessels of the horse, in which it produces aneurisms, often fatal.
  • transitive verb To surround, inclose, or fortify, with palisades.

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

  • noun A wall of wooden stakes, used as a defensive barrier
  • noun A line of cliffs
  • noun biology An even row of cells. e.g.: palisade mesophyll cells.
  • verb transitive To equip with a palisade.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fortification consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground
  • verb surround with a wall in order to fortify

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French palissade, from Old French, from Old Provençal palissada, from palissa, stake, from Vulgar Latin *pālīcea, from Latin pālus; see pag- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French palissade, from Old French, from Old Provençal palissada, from palissa ("stake"), from Gallo-Romance *pālīcea, from Latin pālus ("stake").

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Examples

  • The palisade is an open structure which would not have been defensive and was too high to be practical for controlling livestock.

    Stonehenge ‘Was Hidden from Lower Classes’ | Disinformation 2008

  • If there were guards posted in the watchtower, he could not see them from the covered porch because although the palisade was a simple pole structure, the gate itself had a doubled entry-way: You had to enter through the outer gate into a small, confined area, where you waited for the inner gate to be opened to admit you to the town.

    Spirit Gate 2006

  • Without the palisade was a space of waste land, marsh and thicket, tapering to the narrow strip of sand and scrub joining the peninsula to the forest, and here and there upon this waste ground rose a mean house, dwelt in by the poorer sort.

    To Have and to Hold Mary Johnston 1903

  • Around all these houses they put a triple palisade, that is three rows of stout, sharpened stakes, driven deep into the ground and rising full six feet above it.

    The Young Trailers A Story of Early Kentucky 1890

  • Under some bushes by the palisade was a ladder of rope, the rungs, however, of wood.

    After London Or, Wild England Richard Jefferies 1867

  • In the palisade was a mighty breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six Daniel Lamberts abreast.

    Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) Herman Melville 1855

  • To the delight of many, Gary correctly spelled "palisade" as the rest of the competitors, in a tense tie-breaker, fell by the wayside stumbling over words such as "usurper", "purloin" and

    nst online 2009

  • The king ordered the Agrianians and the archers from Crete inside the palisade, but kept his infantry in reserve.

    Alexander the Great Philip Freeman 2011

  • At the platform atop the palisade, we found Darting Snake.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

  • He considered the warriors guarding the palisade gate, his broad face thoughtful.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

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