Enfilade meaning

ĕnfə-lād, -läd
enfiladed enfilades enfilading
See word origin
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Gunfire directed along the length of a target, such as a column of troops.
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A target vulnerable to sweeping gunfire.
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A linear arrangement of a series of interior doors, as to a suite of rooms, so as to provide an unobstructed view when the doors are open.
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To rake with gunfire.
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Gunfire, from either flank, directed along the length of a column or line of troops.
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A disposition or placement of troops that makes them vulnerable to such fire.
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To direct such gunfire at.
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A line or straight passage, or the position of that which lies in a straight line.
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(architecture) A series of doors that provide a vista when open.
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To rake something with gunfire.
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Origin of enfilade

  • French series, string, row from enfiler to string together, run through from Old French en- in, on en–1 fil thread (from Latin fīlum gwhī- in Indo-European roots)

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Borrowing from French enfilade.

    From Wiktionary

Enfilade Sentence Examples

  • The gigantic rampart was unflanked, and the covered ways in the face of it subject to enfilade from end to end.

  • The Japanese attack was convergent, but there was no room for envelopment; the Russian position moreover was " all-round " and presented no flanks, and except for the enfilade fire of the Japanese and Russian gunboats in the shallow bays on either side the battle was locally at every point a frontal attack and defence.

  • Every knoll had its redoubt or battery, and the trenches were arranged line behind line, to give supporting, cross and enfilade fire in every direction.

  • In military and naval use "to rake" means to enfilade, to fire so that the shot may pass lengthwise along a ship, a line of soldiers, entrenchments, &c. In the nautical sense of the projection or slope of a ship's bows or stern or the inclination of a mast, the word is apparently an adaptation of the Scandinavian raka, to reach, in the sense of reach forward.

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