defile
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɪˈfaɪl/
ipa: /ˈdiː-/
ipa: /dəˈfaɪl/
ipa: /ˈdiˌfaɪl/
rhymes: -aɪl
Forms: form: defiles
form: defilé
form: defilee
form: défilé
Etymology: PIE word
 *dwís
The verb is borrowed from French défiler (“to march; to parade”), from dé- (prefix indicating actions are done more strongly or vigorously) + one or both of the following:
* filer (“to thread through (a crowd)”) (from Late Latin filāre, from Latin fīlum (“fibre, filament, string, thread”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰiH-(s-)lo-).
* file (“line of objects placed one after the other, file”), from filer (see above), or fil (“thread, yarn; wire”), from Old French fil, from Latin fīlum (see above).
The noun is borrowed from French défilé (“parade, procession”), a noun use of the past participle of défiler (verb); see above.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 353:
text: 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.
ref: 1776, Edward Gibbon, chapter XIV, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 437:
text: […] I roam / By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles / Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; […]
ref: 1818, Lord Byron, “Canto IV”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LXII, page 34:
text: [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.
ref: 1922 (date written; published 1926), T[homas] E[dward] Lawrence, “Book III: A Railway Diversion. Chapter XXVIII.”, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, published 1937, →OCLC, page 168:
text: 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.
ref: 1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in Railway Magazine, page 449:
text: 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.
ref: 1960, Plutarch, “Nicias [c. 470–413 b.c.]”, in Ian Scott-Kilvert, transl., The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives […] (Penguin Classics; L102), London: Penguin Books, published 1967, →OCLC, page 239:
text: 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.
ref: 1962 January, “Motive Power Transition on the Kyle Line”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, photograph caption, page 17:
text: "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.
ref: 2023 November 15, Dr Joseph Brennan, “A crucial part of our nation's defences”, in RAIL, number 996, page 60:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: 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.
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: An act of marching in files or lines.
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A single file of soldiers; (by extension) any single file.
Related terms: defilade
defilement
enfilade
enfile
glen