enfilade

UK/ˌɛnfəlˈeɪd/US/ˈɛnfəlˌeɪd/

enfilade noun: a line or straight passage, or the position of that which lies in a straight line.

Image: KovacsDaniel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

enfilade (plural enfilades)

A line or straight passage, or the position of that which lies in a straight line.
- In his Booker Prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst wrote about people who know their world history as being able to look back through the millennia as an enfilade of rooms: Greece yields to Rome; Rome to the Byzantine Empire ... the Renaissance ... the British Empire ......2015 January 4, Harry Mount, “Kings and queens – any other approach to history is boring [print version: Game of thrones, 3 January 2015, p. R22]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)
Gunfire directed along the length of a target.
- Uncle Charles, a truly unparalleled slinger of shit, is laying down an enfilade of same, trying to mollify men who seem way more in need of a good brow-mopping than I.1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 13
- In minutes they had gained the top, fell prone, and began to pour deadly repeater-fire into the enemy below while their compatriots raked the top of the coulee with an enfilade.1996, Guy Vanderhaeghe, chapter 27, in The Englishman’s Boy, New York: Anchor, page 266
Antonyms:

defilade
A series of doors that provide a vista when open.

Verb

enfilade (third-person singular simple present enfilades, present participle enfilading, simple past and past participle enfiladed)

(transitive) To rake (something) with gunfire.
- A great quantity of artillery was placed upon the eminence, so as to batter and enfilade the left of their intrenchments.1765, John Wright, chapter 7, in The Compleat History of the Late War, volume 1, London: David Steel, page 202
- As they scrambled up a narrow path they every where found holes dug to cover the defenders of the mountain, and sticks crossed for resting their guns, with which they enfiladed every angle, that from the steepness it was necessary to make in ascending.1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 3, p. 72
(figuratively, transitive) To be directed toward (something) like enfilading gunfire.
- Together they saw the market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street endways and enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom.1886, Thomas Hardy, chapter 24, in The Mayor of Casterbridge
- From her rocking chair in the parlour, Mrs. Zell’s scrutiny enfiladed the entire block.1921, Henry G. Aikman, Zell, London: Jonathan Cape, Part 1, Chapter 1, p. 15
(transitive) To arrange (rooms or other structures) in a row.
- […] the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses’) one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d’or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres...1920, Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, Book 1, Chapter 3

enfilade meaning in Tamil

enfilade in Tamil

அணிவரிசைவேட்டு, அரண்வரிசை வேட்டு, இழைவரிசைத் தொகுதியான பொருள்கள், வரிசைவேட்டாகச் கட்டுத்தள்ளு, வரிசை வேட்டாகச் சுட்டழி

Examples of enfilade in a sentence

British history clicks into a long enfilade of discrete, identifiable periods.2015 January 4, Harry Mount, “Kings and queens – any other approach to history is boring [print version: Game of thrones, 3 January 2015...
He killed the machine gun crew, and without further orders pushed on and enfiladed a ditch from which three officers and 160 men subsequently surrendered.2019 November 20, “Service honours railwaymen who fought and died in WW1”, in Rail, page 66:

Synonyms of enfilade

flanking fire
raking fire
flank

Antonyms

defilade

Forms of enfilade

Noun
plural	enfilades
Verb
third-person singular present	enfilades
present participle	enfilading
past participle	enfiladed
past	enfiladed

Origin of enfilade

Borrowed from French enfilade.

Words formed from enfilade

unenfiladed

Words that rhyme with enfilade

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about enfilade

What does enfilade mean?: Enfilade means a line or straight passage, or the position of that which lies in a straight line.
What is enfilade in Tamil?: Enfilade in Tamil is அணிவரிசைவேட்டு, அரண்வரிசை வேட்டு, இழைவரிசைத் தொகுதியான பொருள்கள். See Enfilade meaning in Tamil.
How do you use enfilade in a sentence?: British history clicks into a long enfilade of discrete, identifiable periods.
What part of speech is enfilade?: Enfilade can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce enfilade?: Enfilade is pronounced /ˌɛnfəlˈeɪd/ (UK).
What is the plural of enfilade?: The plural of enfilade is enfilades.

Words near enfilade in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: enfilade (page history and authors); enfilade (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “enfilade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/enfilade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.