"shield wall" meaning in English

See shield wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: shield walls [plural]
Etymology: See Old English sċieldweall, with the same meaning. Etymology templates: {{cog|ang|sċieldweall}} Old English sċieldweall Head templates: {{en-noun}} shield wall (plural shield walls)
  1. A defensive formation, used from antiquity through the early Middle Ages, in which soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder with their shields overlapping, creating a continuous barrier against enemy attack. Translations (wall of overlapping shields): skjaldborg [feminine] (Old Norse), parede de escudos [feminine] (Portuguese), murada de escudos [feminine] (Portuguese), sköldborg [common-gender] (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-shield_wall-en-noun-ZNm0hGWV Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Old Norse translations, Terms with Portuguese translations, Terms with Swedish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 96 4 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 90 10 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 97 3 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 97 3 Disambiguation of Terms with Old Norse translations: 90 10 Disambiguation of Terms with Portuguese translations: 84 16 Disambiguation of Terms with Swedish translations: 91 9 Disambiguation of 'wall of overlapping shields': 84 16
  2. (figurative) An impenetrable barrier. Tags: figuratively
    Sense id: en-shield_wall-en-noun-s75maxwl

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "ang",
        "2": "sċieldweall"
      },
      "expansion": "Old English sċieldweall",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "See Old English sċieldweall, with the same meaning.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shield walls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "shield wall (plural shield walls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "96 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "90 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "90 10",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Old Norse translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "84 16",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "91 9",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Swedish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A defensive formation, used from antiquity through the early Middle Ages, in which soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder with their shields overlapping, creating a continuous barrier against enemy attack."
      ],
      "id": "en-shield_wall-en-noun-ZNm0hGWV",
      "links": [
        [
          "defensive",
          "defensive"
        ],
        [
          "formation",
          "formation"
        ],
        [
          "antiquity",
          "antiquity"
        ],
        [
          "Middle Ages",
          "Middle Ages"
        ],
        [
          "soldier",
          "soldier"
        ],
        [
          "overlap",
          "overlap"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "attack",
          "attack"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "non",
          "lang": "Old Norse",
          "lang_code": "non",
          "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "skjaldborg"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "lang_code": "pt",
          "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "parede de escudos"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "lang_code": "pt",
          "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "murada de escudos"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "84 16",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "lang_code": "sv",
          "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "sköldborg"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              71
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1999, Seamus Heaney, “Introduction”, in Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page xii:",
          "text": "Still, in spite of the sensation of being caught between a ‘shield-wall’ of opaque references and a ‘word-hoard’ that is old and strange, such readers are also bound to feel a certain ‘shock of the new’.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An impenetrable barrier."
      ],
      "id": "en-shield_wall-en-noun-s75maxwl",
      "links": [
        [
          "impenetrable",
          "impenetrable"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) An impenetrable barrier."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "shield wall"
  ],
  "word": "shield wall"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Old Norse translations",
    "Terms with Portuguese translations",
    "Terms with Swedish translations"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "ang",
        "2": "sċieldweall"
      },
      "expansion": "Old English sċieldweall",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "See Old English sċieldweall, with the same meaning.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shield walls",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "shield wall (plural shield walls)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A defensive formation, used from antiquity through the early Middle Ages, in which soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder with their shields overlapping, creating a continuous barrier against enemy attack."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "defensive",
          "defensive"
        ],
        [
          "formation",
          "formation"
        ],
        [
          "antiquity",
          "antiquity"
        ],
        [
          "Middle Ages",
          "Middle Ages"
        ],
        [
          "soldier",
          "soldier"
        ],
        [
          "overlap",
          "overlap"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "attack",
          "attack"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              71
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1999, Seamus Heaney, “Introduction”, in Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page xii:",
          "text": "Still, in spite of the sensation of being caught between a ‘shield-wall’ of opaque references and a ‘word-hoard’ that is old and strange, such readers are also bound to feel a certain ‘shock of the new’.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An impenetrable barrier."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "impenetrable",
          "impenetrable"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) An impenetrable barrier."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "non",
      "lang": "Old Norse",
      "lang_code": "non",
      "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "skjaldborg"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "lang_code": "pt",
      "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "parede de escudos"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "lang_code": "pt",
      "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "murada de escudos"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "lang_code": "sv",
      "sense": "wall of overlapping shields",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "sköldborg"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "shield wall"
  ],
  "word": "shield wall"
}

Download raw JSONL data for shield wall meaning in English (2.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-09-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-08-23 using wiktextract (20da82b and a97feda). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.