to lay siege

7 8.2

Surround a place with soldiers and cut off its supplies to make it give up

phrasal verb
/leɪ siːdʒ/

: sitiar

The al Nusra fighters laid siege to a military encampment east of the city of Maaret al-Numan.

I began with some friends to lay siege to his ears, right?

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Examples

The knights of the First Crusade laid siege to the city of Alexandretta for over a year.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
For weeks, the rebels laid siege to the city, cutting off all food and water supplies.
Even now they lay siege to his castle.

Excalibur (1981)
We'll lay siege to the castle and bring back his head!

Beauty and the Beast (1991)
...when federal agencies lay siege to the house.

Late Night with the Devil (2024)
The Queen has left to lay siege to Malaga.

Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
We laid siege to the mountain for two grueling months.

The Summit (2013)
With their American allies, the French laid siege to Savannah in an attempt to regain the only colony still under royal rule.

Academic text (2014)
When the Romans arrived, they laid siege to the city, causing many of the half-million inhabitants to starve to death.

Blog text (32)
In 213 BC, Roman forces led by Marcellus laid siege to the city of Syracuse.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Synonyms

to besiege

vsto lay siege

19 8.3

To surround a place with soldiers until the people inside give up

is the phrasal way to describe that same military action

to beleaguer

vsto lay siege

3 9.5

To surround a place with soldiers to force it to give up

emphasizes the same action but often notes cutting supplies or slow attack

to circumvent

vsto lay siege

Archaic

1 8.2

To surround an enemy to make them give up

focuses more on blocking supplies or attacking over time to win

to siege

vsto lay siege

1 7.4

To surround and attack a place to stop supplies and make those inside give up

is the verb phrase used when carrying out that surrounding and attack

Antonyms

to withdraw

466 2.8

To stop taking part in a place or activity

How Aggressive

to assault

126 4.7

to storm

70 4.4

to lay siege

7 8.2

to blockade

9 6.0

to surround

∞ 1.7

Surface Forms

lay siege infinitive

laying siege present participle

lays siege third person singular

laid siege past

laid siege past participle

Morphology

lay + siege

The verb 'lay' (to set/place) combined with the noun 'siege' (military encirclement) yields a directly compositional meaning: to place or commence a siege around a place. This follows regular English composition patterns and is cross-linguistically matched by equivalent verb+siege constructions, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Lay siege comes from old wars: an army would lay a siege by surrounding a town with soldiers and stopping food and help from coming in. So today lay siege means 'to surround and try to force someone to give up', and people use it for non-war situations like reporters crowding a hotel.