prisoner's base

noun

any of various children's games in which each of two teams has a home base where members of the opposing team are kept prisoner after being tagged or caught and from which they can be freed only in specified ways.

prisoner's base

noun

a children's game involving two teams, members of which chase and capture each other to increase the number of children in their own base

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Word History and Origins

1590–1600; compare late Middle English bace prisoner's base, perhaps from the phrase bringen bas to lay low, cause to surrender; later taken as an assimilated form of bars, plural of bar ¹, or as base ¹ (though the sense “goal or starting point” originated with this game)

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