Stonewall

Meaning

Proper Noun

• 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.
• Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson.
• 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).
• Any of several places:

Origin

• 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.