BESIEGING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does besieging mean? 

• BESIEGING (noun)
  The noun BESIEGING has 1 sense:

1. the action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place and isolates it while continuing to attack

  Familiarity information: BESIEGING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BESIEGING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place and isolates it while continuing to attack

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

beleaguering; besieging; military blockade; siege

Hypernyms ("besieging" is a kind of...):

blockade; encirclement (a war measure that isolates some area of importance to the enemy)

Domain category:

armed forces; armed services; military; military machine; war machine (the military forces of a nation)

Instance hyponyms:

Alamo (a siege and massacre at a mission in San Antonio in 1836; Mexican forces under Santa Anna besieged and massacred American rebels who were fighting to make Texas independent of Mexico)

Atlanta; battle of Atlanta (a siege in which Federal troops under Sherman cut off the railroads supplying the city and then burned it; 1864)

Bataan; Corregidor (the peninsula and island in the Philippines where Japanese forces besieged American forces in World War II; United States forces surrendered in 1942 and recaptured the area in 1945)

Dien Bien Phu (the French military base fell after a siege by Vietnam troops that lasted 56 days; ended the involvement of France in Indochina in 1954)

Lucknow (the British residents of Lucknow were besieged by Indian insurgents during the Indian Mutiny (1857))

Orleans; siege of Orleans (a long siege of Orleans by the English was relieved by Joan of Arc in 1429)

Petersburg; Petersburg Campaign (the final campaign of the American Civil War (1864-65); Union forces under Grant besieged and finally defeated Confederate forces under Lee)

Pleven; Plevna (the town was taken from the Turks by the Russians in 1877 after a siege of 143 days)

siege of Syracuse; Syracuse (the Athenian siege of Syracuse (415-413 BC) was eventually won by Syracuse)

siege of Syracuse; Syracuse (the Roman siege of Syracuse (214-212 BC) was eventually won by the Romans who sacked the city (killing Archimedes))

siege of Vicksburg; Vicksburg (a decisive battle in the American Civil War (1863); after being besieged for nearly seven weeks the Confederates surrendered)

siege of Yorktown; Yorktown (in 1781 the British under Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of three weeks by American and French troops; the surrender ended the American Revolution)

 Context examples 

That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)