Meaning of Defile | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An act of defilading a fortress or other place, or of raising the exterior works in order to protect the interior.
   also, figuratively, rare
2. A narrow passage or way (originally (military), one which soldiers could only march through in a single file or line), especially a narrow gorge or pass between mountains.
   also, figuratively
3. An act of marching in files or lines.
   also, figuratively
4. A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.
   also, figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“VVe had one dangerous Place to paſs, vvhich our Guide told us, if there vvere any more VVolves in the Country, vve ſhould find them there; and this vvas in a ſmall Plain, ſurrounded vvith VVoods on every Side, and a long narrovv Defile or Lane, vvhich vve vvere to paſs to get through the VVood, and then vve ſhould come to the Village vvhere vve vvere to lodge.”

“Conſtantine had taken poſt in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a ſteep hill and a deep moraſs, and in that ſituation he ſteadily expected and repulſed the firſt attack of the enemy.”

“[…] I roam / By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles / Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; […]”

“[T]hese granite hills, thousands of feet high, were impracticable for heavy troops: the passes through them being formidable defiles, very costly to assault or cover.”

“All three parallel valleys of the Llynvi, Garw and Ogmore are much the same in physical character: the lower reaches are wooded and not unattractive, but as the railway climbs on ever-steepening grades, the hills on either hand grow barer and closer together, while in all respects the scene becomes more sombre, with the terraced, slate-roofed colliery towns and the road, railway and river all struggling for space in the narrowing defiles.”

“The next morning the enemy were on the march before him, seized the defiles, blocked the fords of the rivers, destroyed the bridges, and sent out cavalry to patrol the open ground, so as to oppose the Athenians at every step as they retreated.”

“On the final stages of the run from Inverness Class 5 4-6-0 No. 45066 winds its train through narrow rock defiles alongside Loch Carron at the approach to Kyle of Lochalsh.”

“"For the first time in 125 years a powerful enemy was now established across the narrow waters of the English Channel. ... Many people must have been bewildered by the innumerable activities all around them. They could understand the necessity for wiring and mining the beaches, the anti-tank obstacles at the defiles, the concrete pillboxes at the cross-roads, the intrusions into their houses to fill an attic with sandbags, on to their golf-courses or most fertile fields and gardens to burrow out some wide anti-tank ditch." So wrote Winston Churchill in Their Finest Hour, published in 1949.”

CEFR level