Also 8 escallade. [a. Fr. escalade, ad. Sp. escalada = It. scalata, f. It. and med.L. scalāre to scale, f. L. scāla ladder. Cf. SCALADE, SCALADO.]
1. The action of scaling the walls of a fortified place by the use of ladders; also transf. and fig.
1598. Florio, Scalada, an escalade, a scaling of a wall with ladders.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 60. What was here to inrage our Author so that he must raze the Fort of St. Katherine, and attempt with the same success a second Escalade?
1712. Lond. Gaz., No. 5026/5. Two thousand of the Enemy attempted … to take Arrouches by Escallade.
1790. Beatson, Nav. & Mil. Mem., I. 180. He prepared ladders for an escalade.
1824. Wiffen, Tasso, XII. iii. Whilst I … with distant shafts but checked Their eager escalade.
1832. Southey, Hist. Penins. War, III. 416. Had they been aware how little it [the fort] was injured, they would not have recommended the escalade so soon.
1884. Stevenson, New Arab. Nts., 107. The wall had been protected against such an escalade by … old bottles.
¶ 2. ? erroneous use. A series of terraces one above the other, like a staircase. Hence the same writer forms Escaladed a. [-ED2], formed into an ‘escalade.’
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., vi. (1856), 46. The washings of the melted snows had accumulated, in little escalades or terraces, a scanty mould. Ibid. (1857), Arct. Expl., II. xiv. 148. The escaladed structure of the Arctic glacier.
