Definition of sieging in English

Wiktionary

sieging (Verb)
Present participle of siege.

Part of speech

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sieging, verb, gerund of siege (infinitive).

WordNet

Noun Plural: sieges
siege - the action of an armed force that surrounds a fortified place and isolates it while continuing to attack
		besieging, beleaguering, military blockade
		encirclement, blockade a war measure that isolates some area of importance to the enemy
		armed forces, armed services, military, military machine, war machine the military forces of a nation; "their military is the largest in the region"; "the military machine is the same one we faced in 1991 but now it is weaker"

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Wiktionary

siege (Noun)
Seat.
siege (Noun)
A seat, especially as used by someone of importance or authority.
siege (Noun)
1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book III.
siege (Noun)
Thenne the Bisshop of Caunterbury was fette and he blessid the syeges with grete Royalte and deuocyon, and there sette the viii and xx knyghtes in her syeges .. ..
siege (Noun)
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II. vii.
siege (Noun)
To th'vpper part, where was aduaunced hye / A stately siege of soueraigne maiestye; / And thereon sat a woman gorgeous gay .. ..
siege (Noun)
An ecclesiastical see.
siege (Noun)
The place where one has his seat; a home, residence, domain, empire.
siege (Noun)
The seat of a heron while looking out for prey; a flock of heron.
siege (Noun)
A privy or lavatory.
siege (Noun)
The anus; the rectum.
siege (Noun)
1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III. 1.
siege (Noun)
Another ground were certain holes or cavities observable about the siege; which being perceived in males, made some conceive there might be also a feminine nature in them.
siege (Noun)
Excrements, stool, fecal matter.
siege (Noun)
1610, The Tempest , by Shakespeare, act 2 scene 2.
siege (Noun)
Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam'st thou / to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent Trinculos?
siege (Noun)
Military action.
siege (Noun)
A prolonged military assault or a blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force or attrition.
siege (Noun)
1748. David Hume. Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Section 3. § 5.
siege (Noun)
The Peloponnesian war is a proper subject for history, the siege of Athens for an epic poem, and the death of Alcibiades for a tragedy.
siege (Noun)
A period of struggle or difficulty, especially from illness.
siege (Noun)
A prolonged assault or attack.
siege (Noun)
Quote-news.
siege (Verb)
To assault a blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force or attrition; to besiege.

Webster DictionaryWebster's Unabridged Dictionary 📘

siege (n.)
A seat; especially, a royal seat; a throne.
siege (n.)
Hence, place or situation; seat.
siege (n.)
Rank; grade; station; estimation.
siege (n.)
Passage of excrements; stool; fecal matter.
siege (n.)
The sitting of an army around or before a fortified place for the purpose of compelling the garrison to surrender; the surrounding or investing of a place by an army, and approaching it by passages and advanced works, which cover the besiegers from the enemy's fire. See the Note under Blockade.
siege (n.)
Hence, a continued attempt to gain possession.
siege (n.)
The floor of a glass-furnace.
siege (n.)
A workman's bench.
siege (v. t.)
To besiege; to beset.

OmegaWiki DictionaryOmegaWiki Dictionary Ω

siege
Prolonged military assault on a blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force or attrition.

Chambers DictionaryChamber's 20th Century Dictionary 📕

siege
sēj, n. a sitting down with an army round or before a fortified place in order to take it by force: a continued endeavour to gain possession: (Shak.) a seat, throne, station: (Shak.) excrement: the floor of a glass-furnace: a workman's bench.—v.t. to lay siege to.—ns. Siege′-piece, a coin, generally of unusual shape and rude workmanship, issued in a besieged place during stress of siege; Siege′-train, the materials carried by an army for the purpose of laying siege to a place.—State of siege, a condition of things in which civil law is suspended or made subordinate to military law; Minor state of siege, a modification of the more severe rule in cases of merely domestic trouble. [O. Fr. sege (Fr. siège), seat—Low L. assedium=L. obsidium, a siege—sedēre, to sit.]

Sailor's Word-BookThe Sailor's Word-Book ⛵

siege
A continued endeavour, by systematic military means, such as batteries, trenches, mines, &c., to overpower the defences of a place and take possession of it.

Military DictionaryMilitary Dictionary and Gazetteer 💥

siege
(Fr. siege, “a seat, a sitting down”). Is the sitting of an army before a hostile town or fortress with the intention of capturing it. With certain elements, the success of a siege is beyond doubt; the result being merely a question of time. These elements are: First, the force of the besiegers shall be sufficient to overcome the besieged in actual combat, man to man. If this be not the case, the besieged, by a sortie, might destroy the opposing works and drive away the besiegers. The second element is, that the place must be thoroughly invested, so that no provisions, reinforcements, or other aliment of war can enter. The third element is, that the besiegers be undisturbed from without. For this it is essential that there shall not be a hostile army in the neighborhood; or if there be, that the operations of the besiegers be protected by a covering army able to cope with the enemy’s force in the field. The ancients executed gigantic works to produce these effects. To complete the investment they built a high and strong wall around the whole fortress; and to render themselves secure from without they built a similar wall, facing outwards, beyond their own position. The first was circumvallation, the second contravallation. It was thus that Cæsar fortified himself while besieging Alexia, and maintained 60,000 men within his ring. In modern warfare it is considered preferable to establish strong posts here and there round the place, and merely sentinels and videttes between. Let us now assume that a fortress of great strength has to be reduced, and that the force of the enemy in the vicinity has been either subdued or held in check by a covering army. By rapid movements the place is at once invested on all sides. This step constitutes merely a blockade; and if time be of little importance, it is a sufficient operation, for hunger must sooner or later cause the fortress to surrender; but if more energetic measures are required, the actual siege must be prosecuted. Advantage is taken of any hidden ground to establish the park of artillery and the engineer’s park; or, if there be none, these parks have to be placed out of range. The besieging force is now encamped just beyond the reach of the guns of the fortress; and their object is to get over the intervening ground and into the works without being torn to pieces by the concentrated fire of the numerous pieces which the defenders can bring to bear on every part. With this view, the place is approached by a series of zigzag trenches so pointed that they cannot be enfiladed by any guns in the fortress. In order to accommodate the forces necessary to protect the workers, the trenches at certain intervals are cut laterally for a great length, partly encircling the place, and affording safe room for a large force with ample battering material. These are called parallels, and they are generally three in number. The distance of the first parallel will increase as small-arms become more deadly; but with smooth-bore muskets it has been usual to break ground at 600 yards from the covered way of the fortress, while in the case of Sebastopol, ground was broken at 2000 yards. The engineers having, by reconnoissances, decided the locality of the parallel, and taken advantage of any inequalities of surface, a strong body of men is sent to the spot soon after nightfall. The attention of the garrison is distracted by false alarms in other directions. Half the men are armed cap-a-pie, and lie down before the proposed parallel; while the other half, bearing each a pick and shovel, and two empty gabions, prepare for work. Each man deposits the gabions where the parapet of the trench should be. He then digs down behind them, filling the gabions with the earth dug out, and after they are filled, throwing it over them, to widen and heighten the parapet. Before daylight the working party is expected to have formed sufficient cover to conceal themselves and the troops protecting them. During the day, they--being concealed from the garrison--widen and complete their parallel, making it of dimensions sufficient to allow of wagons and bodies of troops with guns passing along. During the same night other parties will have been at work at zigzags of approach from the depots out of range to the first parallel, which zigzags will be probably not less than 1000 yards in length. As a rule, the defenders will not expend ammunition on the first parallel, for its extent (often several miles) will render the probability of doing material damage extremely small. For this reason also, the dimensions of the parapet and its solidity are of far less importance in the first parallel than in the more advanced works of attack. The first parallel being completed, the engineers select points near its extremities, at which they erect breastworks to cover bodies of cavalry, who are kept at hand to resist sorties from the garrison. The length of the parallel is usually made sufficient to embrace all the works of two bastions at least. Sites are then chosen for batteries, which are built up of fascines, gabions, sand-bags, and earth. They are placed at points in the parallel formed by the prolongation of the several faces of the bastions, ravelins, and other works of the fortress, which faces the batteries are severally intended to enfilade by a ricochet fire. Other batteries will be formed for a vertical fire of mortars. By these means it is hoped that the traverses on the hostile ramparts will be destroyed, the guns dismounted, and the defenders dispersed, before the final approaches bring the assailants to the covered way. The sappers will now commence their advance towards the points, or salient angles, of the two bastions to be attacked. If, however, the trench were cut straight towards the fortress, its guns could easily destroy the workmen, and enfilade the approach. To prevent this, it is cut into short zigzags, the direction always being to a point a few yards beyond the outmost flanking-works of the garrison. The side of each trench nearest the fortress is protected by gabions and sand-bags, as in the case of the parallel. At intervals short spurs of trench, incipient parallels, are cut, to contain infantry, to act as guards to the sappers. The second parallel is about 300 yards from the enemy’s works, and has to be more strongly formed than the first. It often terminates in a redoubt to hold some light artillery, and a strong force of infantry, who could assail any sortie in flank; or it may run into the first parallel, giving easier access for troops than through the zigzags. The second parallel is revetted with sand-bags, in which loop-holes are left for musketry. After passing the second parallel, the angles of the zigzags become more acute, to prevent enfilading. At about 150 yards, certain demi-parallels are cut, and armed with howitzer-batteries to clear the covered way, while riflemen also act from it. The third parallel is at the foot of the glacis. Thence the place, after being sufficiently battered, is taken by a storming party, who make their way over the glacis; or the covered way is topped by the double sap, which is a safer plan for the array generally, though much more deadly to the sappers. When the crest of the covered way has thus been reached, batteries of heavy artillery will be there established, for the purpose of breaching the walls of the ravelin and bastion; while at the same time miners will first seek to destroy the defenders’ countermines (which would otherwise be likely to send these batteries into the air), and then will excavate a tunnel to the ditch at the foot of the counterscarp. If the breach becomes practicable, a storming party will emerge from this tunnel or gallery, and seek to carry the opposite work by hard fighting. If inner works still subsist, which would tear assailants to pieces, the double sap may be continued across the ditch, if a dry ditch, right up the breach, that counter-batteries may be formed. If the ditch be wet, means must be adopted for a causeway or a bridge. By these means, however obstinate may be the defense, if the besieging force be sufficiently strong, and aid do not arrive from without, the ultimate success of the attack becomes certain. Vauban raised attack to a superiority above defense, first by the introduction of ricochet fire, which sweeps a whole line; and secondly by originating parallels. Before his time, the whole attack was conducted by zigzag approaches, in which the troops actually in front could be but few, and were therefore unable to withstand strong sorties of the garrison, who, in consequence, frequently broke out and destroyed the works of the besiegers, rendering a siege an operation of the most uncertain character.

Wikipedia

A siege is what happens when a group of people surround another group of people and stop them from escaping, or getting food and water. Without supplies, those inside will have to surrender at some point. There were many sieges in Medieval times, normally at a castle or town. Sieges took a long time, perhaps months, but were almost always successful, unless another group of people came to rescue those inside, by fighting the besiegers.