siege engine

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See also: siege-engine

English

WOTD – 15 January 2023

Etymology

PIE word
*h₁én
A reconstruction of a trebuchet, a kind of siege engine, at Château des Baux in Les Baux-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.

From siege +‎ engine (“large construction used in warfare”).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

siege engine (plural siege engines)

  1. (weaponry, historical) A large weapon of war used during ancient and medieval times to batter fortifications, settlements, etc.; specifically, a trebuchet or other type of catapult.
    Synonyms: military engine, siege weapon
    • 1928, Anna Comnena [i.e., Anna Komnene], “Book XIII”, in Elizabeth A[nna] S[ophia] Dawes, transl., The Alexiad (Byzantine Series), Cambridge, Ont.: In Parentheses Publications, published 2000, page 233:
      Opposite this hill Bohemund's men now began to dig in a definite direction. For the besiegers had devised this new mischief against the city and invented a new knavish siege-engine to apply to the town. For as they dug, they went along under the ground like moles boring holes in the soil and in places protecting themselves by sheds with high roofs against the stones and arrows which were thrown from above, and in others propping up the earth above them with poles, and thus they went on in a straight line.
    • 1934, Robert Graves, chapter XXXII, in I, Claudius: , New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, →OCLC, page 401:
      The cavalry were on the wings and the siege-engines, mangonels and catapults, planted on sand-dunes.

Alternative forms

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Translations

References

  1. ^ Compare “siege engine, n.” under “siege, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “siege engine, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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