(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.
On Bastille Day the little bastille in the Caribbean fell.
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
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
Below them rose the English bastille towers; beyond, the walls, towers, and steeples of Orleans.
From Joan of Arc by Gower, Ronald Sutherland
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
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
France’s attack, which is loaded with more ammunition than the Bastille, has scored 13 goals in four games.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
We'd finished discussing Bastille Day, and the teacher had moved on to Easter, which was represented in our textbooks by a black-and-white photograph of a chocolate bell lying upon a bed of palm fronds.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
After an hour's halt, the English continued to retreat, previously setting fire to their bastilles, and carrying their prisoners with them.
From Joan of Arc by Gower, Ronald Sutherland
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 Black, Robert
And there are towers and bastilles where hope never enters.
From The Chaplet of Pearls by Yonge, Charlotte Mary
The very day after her arrival she would have liked to go and attack the English in their bastilles, within which they kept themselves shut up.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3 by Black, Robert
The English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles around Orleans—fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but one.
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.
