bastion
Americannoun
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Fortification. a projecting portion of a rampart or fortification that forms an irregular pentagon attached at the base to the main work.
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a fortified place.
- Synonyms:
- citadel, stronghold, bulwark, fort, fortress
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anything seen as preserving or protecting some quality, condition, etc..
a bastion of solitude; a bastion of democracy.
noun
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a projecting work in a fortification designed to permit fire to the flanks along the face of the wall
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any fortified place
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a thing or person regarded as upholding or defending an attitude, principle, etc
the last bastion of opposition
Other Word Forms
- bastionary adjective
- bastioned adjective
Etymology
Origin of bastion
1590–1600; < Middle French < Italian bastione, equivalent to Upper Italian bastí ( a ) bastion, originally, fortified, built (cognate with Italian bastita, past participle of bastire to build < Germanic; baste 1 ) + -one augmentative suffix
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.
Small towns, villages and hamlets -- home to around half of the central European nation's 9.5 million people -- have long been the bastion of the ruling Fidesz party.
From Barron's • Mar. 29, 2026
No one’s comfortable saying that that pop music should be a bastion of the wealthy, but solutions to that are not free-market solutions.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 10, 2026
At that $500,000 price point, a buyer can still land a single-family home — an example of how parts of the Midwest remain a bastion of affordability.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 11, 2026
Discovery, it is simultaneously tackling the last bastion where traditional TV has an edge over streamers: sports and live events.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 13, 2026
It was among lean-to’s and adaptations—past ogham atones commemorating some long-dead Deag the son of No, built into a later bastion upside down.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
