bastille

noun

bas·​tille ba-ˈstēl 

: prison, jail

Synonyms

• big house [slang]
• bridewell
• brig
• calaboose
• can
• clink [slang]
• cooler
• coop
• guardroom
• hock
• hold
• hoosegow
• jail
• jailhouse
• joint [slang]
• jug
• lockup
• nick [British slang]
• pen
• penitentiary
• pokey [slang]
• prison
• quod [British slang]
• slam
• slammer
• stir [slang]
• stockade
• tolbooth [Scottish]

Examples of bastille in a Sentence

were amazed by the squalid, cramped quarters in the town's historic bastille

Recent Examples on the Web

For his part, Bowie celebrated the election by joining forces with John Barleycorn and evicting the residents of the local bastille. —Robert Kolarik, San Antonio Express-News, 23 Feb. 2018

In these wet, wooden bastilles in New York waters, more Americans died than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War combined. —Benedict Cosgrove, Smithsonian, 13 Mar. 2017

In these wet, wooden bastilles in New York waters, more Americans died than in all the battles of the Revolutionary War combined. —Benedict Cosgrove, Smithsonian, 13 Mar. 2017

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, after the Bastille St. Antoine, fortress built at an eastern gate of Paris in the later 14th century (used as a prison and destroyed in 1789), from Middle French bassetille, bastille "fortress, fortification," alteration (by substitution of the suffix -ille, usually diminutive, going back to Latin -īcula) of bastide, borrowed from Old Occitan bastida "building, fortification," noun derivative from feminine past participle of bastir "to weave, build, construct," going back to Old Low Franconian *bastjan "to weave with bast strips" — more at baste entry 1

First Known Use

1663, in the meaning defined above