Stonewall

See also: stonewall, stone-wall, and stone wall

English

Etymology

From stone +‎ wall. The drink is so named because its effect is likened to running into a stone wall. The riots take their name from the Stonewall Inn where they began (in the 1840s, the property was called Bonnie's Stone Wall, later renamed to Bonnie's Stonewall Inn, then the Stonewall Inn Restaurant, and then the Stonewall Inn). The Confederate general acquired his nickname after a battle in which, while other troops were in motion, fellow general Barnard E. Bee observed "there stands Jackson like a stone wall" (either resolutely, or unhelpfully). The chess setup is so named because it is a solid formation which is hard to overrun by force, like a stone wall.

Noun

Stonewall (plural Stonewalls)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of stonewall (“alcoholic drink”)
    • 1974, Ian Keown, Lovers' guide to America, page 85:
      Try one of the inn's specialties from the old days — a Coow Woow (pronounced coo-woo), a 17th-century drink made with ginger brandy and rum on crushed ice; or a Stonewall, which is a century older — gin and applejack over ice cubes.
    • 2001, Bert Osterberg, Silas Cully's Tavern Tales: Stories, Jokes, and Recipes, →ISBN:
      A Stonewall? That's a man's drink, ma'am. It's hard cider—cider wine at about six-and-one-half percent alcohol with rum added. Quite powerful.

Proper noun

Stonewall

  1. A series of riots in 1969 New York City, beginning with the patrons of the gay bar "The Stonewall Inn" resisting police arrest, which marked the beginning of the militant gay rights movement.
  2. Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson.
  3. A formation in chess (a variation of the Queen's Pawn Game) in which white plays pawns to d4 and several other positions, requiring black to react energetically (see Stonewall Attack).
    the Stonewall attack, a Stonewall setup, a Stonewall formation
  4. Any of several places:
    1. A town in Manitoba, Canada.
    2. A former gold-mining town in California, in the Cuyamaca Mountains.
    3. A town in Louisiana.
    4. A town in Mississippi.
    5. A town in North Carolina.
    6. A town in Oklahoma.
    7. An unincorporated community in Texas.
    8. An unincorporated community in West Virginia.

Derived terms

Further reading
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