bastille
Meanings
Plural: bastilles
Noun
- a fortress built in Paris in the 14th century and used as a prison in the 17th and 18th centuries; it was destroyed July 14, 1789 at the start of the French Revolution
- a jail or prison (especially one that is run in a tyrannical manner)
- 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.
- A jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners.
- Synonym of workhouse (“an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work”).
- The fortified encampment of an army besieging a place; also, any of the buildings in such an encampment.
Verb
- To confine (someone or something) in, or as if in, a bastille (noun sense 2.1) or prison; to imprison.
Origin / Etymology
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”), from Proto-Germanic *bastaz (“fibre; rope”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰask- ~ *bʰasḱ- (“bundle, heap, load”) but this is disputed.
Sense 2.1 (“jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners”) is from the Bastille in Paris, France. Known in full as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, it was a former fortress used as a prison by the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Bastille was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 at the start of the French Revolution and later demolished, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement.
Sense 2.2 (“workhouse”) was possibly popularized by the English politician William Cobbett (1763–1835) who opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 William IV, chapter 76; often called the “New Poor Law”). This Act made relief or welfare for poor people only available through workhouses, and ensured that the working conditions were harsh so that only the truly destitute would apply for relief.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Cognates
Late Latin bastile (“wooden siege tower”), bastilla, bastillia, bastillus, bastellum (“fortification; wooden siege tower”)
Synonyms
bang up, bastille, clap up, confine, gaol, immure, imprison, incarcerate, jail, lock up, mew up, put away, roof, send down, workhouse
Scrabble Score: 10
bastille is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordbastille is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
bastille is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary