escalade (English)
Where does "escalade" come from?
The word escalade descends from the Latin word 'scālae,' which originally referred to a ladder or a flight of stairs. It journeyed through Italian as 'scalata', a term describing the act of climbing, before entering French and eventually English as a military term for scaling walls during a siege.
Full etymology tree
- escalade (English), 'An act of scaling walls or fortifications.'
- borrowed escalade (French), 'climbing'
- borrowed scalata (Italian), 'scaling, climbing'
- deverbal scalare (Italian), 'to climb, to scale'
- derived scala (Italian), 'ladder'
- inherited scala (Latin), 'ladder'
- inherited scalae (Latin), '(flight of) stairs; staircase'
- inherited *skend- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to jump up, ascend'
- inherited scalae (Latin), '(flight of) stairs; staircase'
- inherited scala (Latin), 'ladder'
- derived scala (Italian), 'ladder'
- deverbal scalare (Italian), 'to climb, to scale'
- borrowed scalata (Italian), 'scaling, climbing'
- borrowed escalade (French), 'climbing'
Direct ancestors
Updated May 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris