escalade
UK /ˌɛskəˈleɪd/ · US /ˈɛskəˌleɪd/ noun, verb
Forms escalades escalading escaladed
- noun An act of scaling walls or fortifications. “An escalade was required for the warriors to attack the troops.”
- verb (military, dated) To scale the walls of a fortification.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from French escalade, from Italian scalata, from scalare (“to climb”), from scala (“ladder”), from Latin scālae (“ladder”). Doublet of scalade.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A furious attack made by troops on a fortified place, in which ladders are used to pass a ditch or mount a rampart.
- verb To mount and pass or enter by means of ladders; to scale; as, to escalate a wall.
Etymology [F., Sp. escalada (cf. It. scalata), fr. Sp. escalar to scale, LL. scalare, fr. L. scala ladder. See Scale, v. t.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “escalade”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details