bastille
Syllables: bast·ille/bæˈstiːl/US/bæˈstil/
bastille noun: chiefly in French contexts: a bastion (“projecting part of a rampart or other fortification”) or tower of a castle; also, a fortified tower or other building; or a small citadel or fortress.
Noun
bastille (plural bastilles)
- Chiefly in French contexts: a bastion (“projecting part of a rampart or other fortification”) or tower of a castle; also, a fortified tower or other building; or a small citadel or fortress.
- H' incounters Talgol, routs the Bear, / And takes the Fidler Prisoner; / Conveys him to enchanted Castle, / There shuts him fast in wooden Bastile.1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678...
- A jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners.
- Thither arriv'd th' advent'rous Knight / And bold Squire from their Steeds alight, / At th' outward Wall, near which [there] stands / A Bastile built t'imprison hands; / By strange enchantment made to fetter / The lesser parts, and free the greater. / For though the Body may creep through, / The...1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678...
- ―The devil it is! ſaid I—but I vvill go to ten thouſand Baſtiles firſt— […]1765, [Laurence Sterne], chapter XXXV, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume VII, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, […], →OCLC, page 129
- Synonym of workhouse (“an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work”).
- Synonyms:
- workhouse
- The fortified encampment of an army besieging a place; also, any of the buildings in such an encampment.
- VVhen they ſhould have ſtood to it in field, and fought, then they fled back to their tends: vvhen they vvere to guard and defend their trench and rampart, they ſurrendered them to the enemy: good no vvhere, neither in battel nor in baſtil.1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “[Book XXII]”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC, page 380
Verb
bastille (third-person singular simple present bastilles, present participle bastilling, simple past and past participle bastilled)
- To confine (someone or something) in, or as if in, a bastille (noun sense 2.1) or prison; to imprison.
- Inſtead of forging Chains for Foreigners, / Baſtile thy Tutor: Grandeur All thy Aim?1745, [Edward Young], “Night the Ninth and Last. The Consolation. Containing, among Other Things, I. A Moral Survey of the Nocturnal Heavens. II. A Night-Address to the Deity. […]”, in The Complaint...
- [W]hy if you don't ſcamper, you'll be baſtil'd, before you can ſay, "Killarney."1791 (first performance), [Frederic] Reynolds, Notoriety: A Comedy, Dublin: […] P. Byrne, […], published 1792, →OCLC, Act IV, scene [i], page 43
Proper noun capitalized: Bastille
the Bastille
bastille meaning in Hindi, Tamil and Bengali
bastille in Hindi
- fortified tower or other building
- क़िला qilā
bastille in Tamil
- கோட்டைக் கோபுரம், அரண்மனைக் கோபுரம், அரண், சிறைச்சாலை, சிறைக்கோட்டம்
bastille in Bengali
- কারাগার
Examples of bastille in a sentence
- Whithersoever you choose; but by what means of conveyance[?] […] Shall it be the Great Northern, hard by Battle Bridge and Pentonville's frowning bastille?1859, George Augustus Sala, “Seven o’Clock a.m.—A Parliamentary Train”, in Twice Round the Clock; or The Hours of the Day and Night in...
- Ideas are very easily Bastilled, as you call it."1852, chapter VI, in The Court and the Desert; or, Priests, Pastors, and Philosophers, in the Time of Louis XV. […], volume I, London...
- For a lampoon on the Regent [Philippe II, Duke of Orléans] he [Voltaire] had been bastilled.1904 August, S. G. Tallentyre, “The English Friends of Voltaire”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XVII, number 98 (New Series), London...
- Although people equated going into a workhouse with being "bastilled," this was not the sure result of asking a relieving officer for help.1990, Lynn Hollen Lees, “The Survival of the Unfit: Welfare Policies and Family Maintenance in Nineteenth-century London”, in Peter...
Synonyms of bastille
Forms of bastille
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | bastilles |
| alternative form | bastile |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | bastilles |
| present participle | bastilling |
| past participle | bastilled |
| past | bastilled |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Bastile |
Origin of bastille
The noun is derived from Middle English bastile, bastel (“fortification for attack mounted on a barge or wheels; projecting part of a fortification, bastion, turret; fortified encampment of a besieging army; structure carrying armed men on an elephant’s back; (figuratively) refuge, shelter; protector”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman bastile, bastille, Middle French bastille, and Old French baastel, basstel (“fortification; fortified tower; temporary fortification constructed for attack or defence; (small) castle or fortress”) (modern French bastille; compare Medieval Latin bastīle), from bastide (“fortification; fortress”) with the ending modified after nouns ending in -ille (from Latin -īle (suffix forming place names)). Bastide is derived from Old Occitan bastida (“fortification; (Provence) country mansion”), from bastir (“to build, construct”) + -ida (suffix forming nouns); while bastir is from *bastīre, from Frankish *bastijan (“to sew; to weave”), from Proto-West Germanic *bast (“fibre; rope”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰask- ~ *bʰasḱ- (“bundle, heap, load”) but this is disputed. Compare typologically Russian опло́т (oplót)...
Borrowed from French Bastille, from bastille (“fortress”): see further at the English entry bastille. The building was known in full as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, and was a former fortress used as a prison by the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Words formed from bastille
- Bastille Day
- Steel
- bastle
- bastle house
Questions about bastille
- What does bastille mean?
- Bastille means chiefly in French contexts: a bastion (“projecting part of a rampart or other fortification”) or tower of a castle; also, a fortified tower or other building; or a small citadel or fortress.
- What is bastille in Hindi?
- Bastille in Hindi is क़िला (qilā). See Bastille meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use bastille in a sentence?
- Whithersoever you choose; but by what means of conveyance[?] […] Shall it be the Great Northern, hard by Battle Bridge and Pentonville's frowning bastille?
- What part of speech is bastille?
- Bastille can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce bastille?
- Bastille is pronounced /bæˈstiːl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of bastille?
- The plural of bastille is bastilles.
Words near bastille in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bastille (page history and authors); Bastille (page history and authors); bastille (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bastille (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Bastille.wav, En-au-bastille.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bastille.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bastille. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.