dungeon
Americannoun
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dungeons
plural
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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:
He scrambled together a videotape, renting out a dungeon batting cage in Manhattan for a throwing session.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026
The narrator is paranoid, weepy and violent, overwhelmed by visions of his own death, and the bass sounds as if it’s descending to a windowless dungeon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
In “Twenty-Sided Tavern,” there are three core actors playing and acting out the game, one dungeon master and a sort of tavern keeper helping to keep score and track of the story.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2025
At least two other Texas prisons, the Gib Lewis Unit and the John B. Connally Unit, have their own version of the dungeon.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2024
We beat the dungeon mere seconds before Lorren’s mom ordered her to get off the game or she’d shut off the electricity in the whole house.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
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
If Link is puzzle-solving muscle, Zelda is conjurer, a solution-based thinker whose approach to monsters, dungeons and rifts that turn the world into fragments is equal parts patience, humor and, yes, action.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2024
Long-running series like The Legend of Zelda tout the Hyrule kingdom’s mysteries, rife with dim dungeons and vast wetlands observed from mountaintops.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 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
You, though... several of my best are locked up in the queen’s dungeons thanks to that lying tongue of yours, and I doubt that you can even cook.”
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
