dungeon
Americannoun
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a strong, dark prison or cell, usually underground, as in a medieval castle.
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the keep or stronghold of a castle; donjon.
noun
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a close prison cell, often underground
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a variant of donjon
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dungeon
1250–1300; Middle English dungeo ( u ) n, dongeoun, dungun < Middle French donjon < Vulgar Latin *domniōn- (stem of *domniō ) keep, mastery, syncopated variant of *dominiōn- dominion
Explanation
That dank, stone-walled underground prison where wretched prisoners were kept manacled in medieval days? That was a dungeon, otherwise known as the "keep," and most familiar to us today from a million video games and movies. In fact, the original meaning of dungeon was of something overground rather than underground, coming from the Old French term donjon, meaning the "great tower of a castle," and the underground meaning only came later. Rapunzel in the fairy tale was held captive in a tower rather than an underground cell and if she hadn't been, her long hair wouldn't have been much help in her escape.
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:
The show is part travelogue, part adventure quest with monsters, magic battles and dungeon exploration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2025
And somewhere deeper still, a dwarf is gently stirring hot pot in a dungeon, seasoning monsters like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
From Salon ● May 12, 2025
The closer we got to the dungeon, the more the administration building deteriorated.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2024
Not another cooking game, but instead a new take on a dungeon crawler where you can team up with your friends to survive in a twisted reality show competition.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2024
Cora's grandmother had never seen the ocean before that bright afternoon in the port of Ouidah and the water dazzled after her time in the fort’s dungeon.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
It’s weird to be alive at a time when much of contemporary warfare comprises literal laser beams, flying robots and dungeons full of nerds at computer terminals, but that’s really what’s happening.
From Salon ● Mar. 25, 2026
In the book, Dr. Oxnam described how the personalities inhabited a vivid internal world — a castle with rooms, dungeons, walkways and a library behind iron-locked doors.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
Mr Hamaguchi says the developers want the open world to work as "one single space" with "all of the towns, all of the dungeons and everything linked together seamlessly in one space".
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2023
Harris descended into the dungeons of the facility, toured the cells where enslaved people were kept and walked through the so-called door of no return, choking back tears, her hand over her mouth.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 28, 2023
When they left the dungeons at the end of Potions, they found a large fir tree blocking the corridor ahead.
From "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
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.
