(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.
The anniversary of the attack, Bastille Day, is the most important national holiday in France.
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
On Bastille Day the little bastille in the Caribbean fell.
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
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
It follows, then, that we must begin with the bastille St. John, and that will give the English time to—" Joan turned and said: "Give yourselves no uneasiness about the bastille St. John.
From Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 by Twain, Mark
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.
