Other forms: sieges
A siege is surrounding a place to force it to surrender. Lay siege to the city, the siege lasted, break the siege.
Before gunpowder it was mostly a waiting game about food and water, and most sieges ended in starvation or disease rather than assault. Under the laws of war, starving civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited. The word comes from the French for a seat.
1nounsiegeThe surrounding of a place to force surrender.
“During the siege, the people of the city ran out of food and began to starve.”
siege is a military operation.
Old French siege means a seat, from Latin sedere, to sit. A besieging army sits down before a place.
Proto-Indo-European
*sed-
Latin
sēdicŭlum
Vulgar Latin
*sēdicum
Old French
sege
Middle English
sege
English, today
siege
Built from
From Middle English sege, from Old French sege, siege, seige (modern French siège), from Vulgar Latin sēdicum, from Latin sēdicŭlum, sēdēcula (“small seat”), from Latin sēdēs (“seat”). The military sense of the term is derived from the notion of an army "sitting down" in front of its target.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA