circle the wagons

1. To become defensive. (Conestoga wagons under attack were traditionally brought into a circular defensive position.) I'm not questioning your decision, so don't circle the wagons—I'm just looking for some more information. Look, fellas, no need to circle the wagons—I took one meeting with the C-suite, that's it. No one's job is at stake here. Jenna is always complaining about her husband, yet she circles the wagons when someone says the slightest critical thing about him. Why?

2. To confer only with people within a trusted group. Callie's new group of friends really circles the wagons, so she hardly talks to me anymore. Circle the wagons, people. We can't have word of this getting out to the press. The senator's office did attempt to circle the wagons, but an intern leaked news of the scandal to a reporter.

circle the wagons!

Prepare your defenses. A line in Western movies, when the Indians were about to attack a wagon train, was the wagon master's shout to “circle the wagons!” The Conestogas and prairie schooners then formed a circle to make a barricade behind which men fired their rifles at their attackers who galloped around the perimeter while the womenfolk reloaded the weapons or tended to the injured. (Another “oater” convention had the cavalry appear over the horizon and charge to the rescue). You didn't have to wear a ten-gallon hat and carry a Winchester 73 to use the phrase. When trouble appeared, such as an advertising agency about to lose an important account, a “Mad Man” would summon his department with a “Let's get the wagons in a circle and save this sinking ship” (mixed metaphors were not unknown in the advertising business).