under siege

under siege

1. Literally, surrounded by the armed forces of the military or police, unable to leave or escape. The city remained under siege for nearly three months. By the time they finally surrendered, their citizens were starved nearly half to death.
2. Facing increasing pressure or difficulty. The company's stocks have been under siege as news of the scandal continues to spook investors.
3. Subject to criticisms or personal attacks from various different sources or angles. I've been under siege lately, with people from around the company coming to complain about the software issue.
See also: siege
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

under ˈsiege


1 surrounded by an army or the police: The city has now been under siege for more than three weeks.
2 being criticized all the time or put under pressure by problems, questions, etc: The dollar came under siege on Monday, falling to its lowest for three years.
See also: siege
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • literally
  • a smokescreen
  • dimensional
  • (the) survival of the fittest
  • beat the (living) daylights out of (one)
  • beat the daylights out of
  • beat the hell out of
  • beat the hell out of (one)
  • beat the living daylights out of
  • beat/knock/kick the hell out of somebody/something
References in periodicals archive
on Sunday from the coastal city to promote the plight of Gazans under siege. The Israeli siege on Gaza is tantamount to a crime punishable by law, he said, calling for lifting the 12-year-old blockade on the enclave.
Carentan is in the grip of a snow storm, and under siege by a counterinsurgent German Wehrmacht force," (https://community.sledgehammergames.com/t5/Sledgehammer-Games/WINTER-SIEGE-IS-COMING-TO-CALL-OF-DUTY-WWII/ba-p/10533625) Sledgehammer Games said .
"Of course we refused that because we do not need them, even while under siege."
In sum, despite its growing popularity as a counterinsurgency strategy, siege warfare rarely is effective to defeat an enemy, seize or control important terrain, or change the balance of power to end a war--barring a major outside intervention or a willingness on the part of the counterinsurgent to nearly level the area under siege. To better illustrate this point, two short case studies of the sieges of Aleppo and Grozny counterintuitively reveal some of the tactical and strategic limitations of siege warfare, short of relying on overwhelming indiscriminate force and external backing.
Bowyer Bell, Besieged: Seven Cities under Siege (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006).
They made it clear that the plans to place Gaza under siege came years before Hamas' victory in the Palestinian legislative council elections and its subsequent violent clashes with rival Fatah.
of Jerusalem) draws his information from literary sources, including the Sumerian "Curse of Akkad" and the "Lamentation on the Destruction of Ur," various books of the Bible, royal inscriptions, and the writings of Greek historians; nonliterary documents such as legal documents from places under siege, documents dealing with divination, mathematical texts with engineering exercises concerning siege technology; artistic depictions of siege warfare; and archaeological evidence.
Not only because it is the duty of moral people to protest injustice, and especially injustice perpetrated by their own country, its government and its armed forces, but also because we, inhabitants of Israel, could never live in peace and quiet, while the Gazans live under siege and in terrible poverty.
Luke 21:5-6 provides the context as Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, saying: "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." King Zedekiah forbade discouraging talk about the city of Jerusalem under siege by the Babylonians, and we can be sure that Jesus' talk of destruction was forbidden by the chief priests and scribes.
Parents Under Siege: Why You Are the Solution, Not the Problem, in Your Child's Life, by James Garbarino and Claire Bedard, New York: Free Press, 240 pages, 324
In November 1992 I found myself at a literary conference in Strasbourg, France, speaking on a subject I knew only too well - culture under siege. As editor-in-chief of the Sarajevo independent daily, Oslobodjenje, I was away from my homeland for the first time in seven months, receiving medical treatment.
Blockade Diary comprises two sections: "Blockade Diary" and a separate unit titled "Blockade Diary Addenda," which contains the three subsections "Notes Under Siege," "Paralysis," and "Excerpts from a Siege Day." This is followed by two pages of notes, primarily filling out historical information.
Al-Haq's 1989 annual report, A Nation Under Siege, by comparison shows how the conceptualization behind Punishing a Nation reflected only a partial transition from the conventions dominant before the uprising.
Many of the attendees knew Johnson for a long time, while some of them knew him only during the hours when the cafe was under siege by Man Haron Monis.