Definitions
a jail or prison (especially one that is run in a tyrannical manner)
Word origin
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.
Used in a sentence
“H' incounters Talgol, routs the Bear, / And takes the Fidler Prisoner; / Conveys him to enchanted Castle, / There shuts him fast in wooden Bastile.”
“―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, […]”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer1 curated clues
01“French prison”8 letters
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