Definitions

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

  • noun The act of scaling a fortified wall or rampart.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A mounting by means of a ladder or ladders; especially, an assault on a fortified place by troops who mount or pass its defenses by the aid of ladders.
  • To scale; mount and pass or enter by means of a ladder: as, to escalade a wall.

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

  • noun (Mil.) A furious attack made by troops on a fortified place, in which ladders are used to pass a ditch or mount a rampart.
  • transitive verb (Mil.) To mount and pass or enter by means of ladders; to scale.

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

  • noun An act of scaling walls or fortifications
  • verb military, dated To scale the walls of a fortification.

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

  • verb climb up and over
  • noun an act of scaling by the use of ladders (especially the walls of a fortification)

Etymologies

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

[French, from Italian scalata, ultimately from Latin scālae, ladder; see skand- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French, from Italian scalata, from scalare ("to climb"), from scala ("ladder"), from Latin scalae ("ladder")

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word escalade.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.