Bastille

Quick meaning: Bastille is a noun meaning A jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners.

Meaning

A jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners.

More Meanings

1. Synonym of workhouse (“an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work”).
2. (military, historical) The fortified encampment of an army besieging a place; also, any of the buildings in such an encampment.
3. (transitive, also figuratively) To confine (someone or something) in, or as if in, a bastille (noun sense 2.1) or prison; to imprison.
4. Chiefly in French contexts: a bastion (“projecting part of a rampart or other fortification”) or tower of a castle; also, a fortified tower or other building; or a small citadel or fortress.

Example Sentences

―The devil it is! ſaid I—but I vvill go to ten thouſand Baſtiles firſt— […]

[W]hy if you don't ſcamper, you'll be baſtil'd, before you can ſay, "Killarney."

Inſtead of forging Chains for Foreigners, / Baſtile thy Tutor: Grandeur All thy Aim?

H' incounters Talgol, routs the Bear, / And takes the Fidler Prisoner; / Conveys him to enchanted Castle, / There shuts him fast in wooden Bastile.

Word Forms

• bastilles
• bastile
• bastilling
• bastilled

Synonyms for bastille

Depending on context, synonyms include workhouse, bang up, confine, gaol, incarcerate, immure.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include seine, jacobin, font, bastide, capitol.

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