postern

UK/ˈpɒst(ə)n/US/ˈpoʊstəɹn/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: posterns

A postern is a small back gate in a castle wall. Slip out by the postern.

It was for messengers and for escape rather than for any traffic. A postern was the weakest point in a wall, which is why it was so often the way in.

Definitions of postern

1nounposternA small back gate in a castle wall.C2
“The postern had been blocked with stone two centuries earlier.”

postern is a gate.

Where it comes from

Latin posterula means a small back door, from posterus, behind.

Proto-Indo-European
*pós
Old French
posterne — hidden exit from a fortified building; back door; small door
Anglo-Norman
posterne
Latin
posterna
Middle English
postern
English, today
postern

Built from

posterne · Middle English — side door or gate; small entranceway; hidden or secret door or passage
posterle · Old French — back door or passage
internus · Latin — internal, inward
posterula · Latin — (small) back door, gate, or way

The is derived from Middle English postern, posterne (“side door or gate; small entranceway; hidden or secret door or passage”), from Latin posterna, and from its likely Anglo-Norman posterne and Old French posterne (“hidden exit from a fortified building; back door; small door”) (modern French poterne), a variant of posterle (“back door or passage”) (although this is attested later), possibly also influenced by Latin externus (“external, outward”) and internus (“internal, inward”). Posterle is from Latin posterla, posterula (“(small) back door, gate, or way”), from Latin posterus (“coming after, later, next”) (from post (“after; behind”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European pós (“afterwards; at, by”)) + -ula. The is from an use of the noun.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

postern in the wild

A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall.
Postern
In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing defenders to make a sortie on the besiegers.
Postern
In addition to the main gate, postern gates could also feature a bent entrance, usually on a smaller scale.
Bent entrance
For instance, in the ruined Hospitaller castle at Belvoir, posterns open into the moat at the angle between the outer wall and the corner towers.
Bent entrance
Stephen's Gate (in reference to the postern of Santo Stefano, now no longer exists).
Basilica di Santo Stefano Maggiore

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the internus family

intern internship

postern — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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