bailey

The word “bailey” means the outer wall of a castle, or the open courtyard enclosed within it. In plain terms, historically, the walled courtyard of a castle; more recently, part of the "motte and bailey" term for a rhetorical trick of switching between a bold claim and a safer one.

“Bailey” is pronounced BAY-lee (/ˈbeɪli/ in IPA).

Here is “bailey” used in a sentence: “Soldiers drilled in the bailey each morning before the castle gates opened.”

“Bailey” is a noun.

The word “bailey” comes from Latin. From Old French baile ("palisade, enclosure"), from Latin bacula, plural of baculum ("stick, rod").

“Bailey” is a fairly common word in modern English.

“Bailey” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the outer wall of a castle, or the open courtyard enclosed within it.

In a medieval castle, the motte is the raised earth mound topped by the keep, while the bailey is the enclosed courtyard at its base, protected by an outer wall. Together they form the classic motte-and-bailey castle design.

A motte-and-bailey argument is a rhetorical tactic in which someone advances a bold claim that is hard to defend (the bailey), then retreats to a safer, easy-to-defend claim (the motte) when challenged. The names come from castle design, where the bailey is the exposed courtyard and the motte is the fortified mound.

A bailey is specifically the open courtyard enclosed within a castle's outer wall, or that wall itself. A courtyard is any open area enclosed by buildings or walls, so every bailey is a courtyard but only castle courtyards are baileys.

The Old Bailey is the popular name for the Central Criminal Court in London, taken from the street on which it stands. The street name is generally thought to derive from the bailey of the old city wall, reflecting the word's original sense of a fortified enclosure.