bastille

name

1. A former fortress and prison in Paris, France, the storming of which in 1789 began the French Revolution.

noun

1. 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.”

2. (figuratively)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 Hands in Grate are fast enough.”

   “―The devil it is! ſaid I—but I vvill go to ten thouſand Baſtiles firſt— […]”

   “But Nigel was somewhat immured within the Bastile of his rank, as some philosopher, (Tom Paine, we think,) has happily enough expressed that sort of shyness which men of dignified situations are apt to be beset with, […]”

   “Whithersoever you choose; but by what means of conveyance[?] […] Shall it be the Great Northern, hard by Battle Bridge and Pentonville's frowning bastille?”

3. (British, derogatory, figuratively)Synonym of workhouse (“an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work”).
4. (historical)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.”

verb

1. (also, figuratively, transitive)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?”

   “[W]hy if you don't ſcamper, you'll be baſtil'd, before you can ſay, "Killarney."”

   “Behold them Bastilling the mildest and most indulgent monarch that ever sat upon their throne; […]”

   “Marriage had baſtilled me for life.”

   “Eh bien! there is another one who is beloved by one of your daughters, which did not prevent you from Bastilling him with a vengeance.”