bastille
noun
a fortress in Paris, used as a prison, built in the 14th century and destroyed July 14, 1789.
bastille
American
[ba-steel, ba s-tee-yuh]
/ bæˈstil, basˈti jə /
Also
bastile
noun
-
bastilles
plural
-
(initial capital letter) a fortress in Paris, used as a prison, built in the 14th century and destroyed July 14, 1789.
-
any prison or jail, especially one conducted in a tyrannical way.
-
a fortified tower, as of a castle; a small fortress; citadel.
Bastille
British
/ bastij, bæˈstiːl /
noun
Bastille
Cultural
Discover More
The anniversary of the attack, Bastille Day, is the most important national holiday in France.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of bastille
1350–1400; Middle English bastile < Middle French, probably alteration of bastide bastide, with -ile (< Medieval Latin, Latin -īle noun suffix of place) replacing -ide; replacing Middle English bastel < Old French basstel, with -el similarly replacing -ide
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On Bastille Day the little bastille in the Caribbean fell.
From Time Magazine Archive
He declared that France "must not become a prisoner in the great bastille over which would float the Anglo-Saxon flags."
From Time Magazine Archive
But when it came, Youlou's exit had all the revolutionary trimmings, including a storming of the local bastille and a mob outside the palace howling for bread.
From Time Magazine Archive
Another is an American who has built a rambling bastille of words in which meanings are thrown into dungeons, to be reached only through endless labyrinths of painstaking prose.
From Time Magazine Archive
During three hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last La Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the bastille St. Loup was ours.
From Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Mark Twain
Instead of capping raucous Bastille Day celebrations in France with a trip to the World Cup final, Deschamps and his squad will travel to Miami to play in the third-place game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
A military parade has marched through the streets of Paris below clouds of red, white and blue smoke left by planes in the sky as part of Bastille Day celebrations.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
There’s a day for everything — and July 14 is, of course, most well known internationally for being Bastille Day, commemorating France’s independence.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 14, 2026
Temperatures were expected to remain high through France's Bastille Day national holiday on Tuesday, according to the Meteo-France weather service.
From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026
He had even progressed to writing some pieces; one of them I know he named “The Bastille Concerto.”
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
It filled the bastilles of God, the convents and monasteries of pre-mediæval days.
From Historia Amoris: A History of Love, Ancient and Modern by Edgar Saltus
For two days the bastilles erected by the besiegers against the place were repeatedly attacked by the besieged.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by Robert Black
Their bastilles were found to be full of victual and munitions; and they had abandoned their sick and many of their prisoners.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by Robert Black
Six strongly-fortified posts, called bastilles, were formed at certain intervals round the town, and the purpose of the English engineers was to draw strong lines between them.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Rossiter Johnson
My counsel doth tell me to go against the English; but I know not whether against their bastilles or against this Fascot.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by Robert Black
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
