Noah Webster
Empale
EMPA'LE, verb transitive [Latin palus.]
1. To fence or fortify with stakes; to set a line of stakes or posts for defense.
All that dwell near enemies empale villages, to save themselves from surprise.
[We now use stockade, in a like sense.]
2. To inclose; to surround.
Round about her work she did empale
With a fair border wrought of sundry flowers.
3. To inclose; to shut in.
Impenetrable, empal'd with circling fire.
4. To thrust a stake up the fundament, and thus put to death; to put to death by fixing on a stake; a punishment formerly practiced in Rome, and still used in Turkey.