bastille
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /bæˈstiːl/
ipa: /bɑː-/
ipa: /ˈbæstɪl/
ipa: /ˈbɑː-/
ipa: [bæˈstɪəɫ]
ipa: /bæˈstil/
rhymes: (one pronunciation) -iːl
Forms: form: bastilles
form: bastilling
form: bastilled
form: bastilled
form: bastile
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.
Compare typologically Russian опло́т (oplót), плете́нь (pleténʹ) (akin to плести́ (plestí)).
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”)
Senses: examples: text: Inſtead of forging Chains for Foreigners, / Baſtile thy Tutor: Grandeur All thy Aim?
ref: 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: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, London: […] [Samuel Richardson] for A[ndrew] Millar […], and R[obert] Dodsley […], published 1750, →OCLC, page 332:
text: [W]hy if you don't ſcamper, you'll be baſtil'd, before you can ſay, "Killarney."
ref: 1791 (first performance), [Frederic] Reynolds, Notoriety: A Comedy, Dublin: […] P. Byrne, […], published 1792, →OCLC, Act IV, scene [i], page 43:
text: Behold them Bastilling the mildest and most indulgent monarch that ever sat upon their throne; […]
ref: 1793 January 17, Anna Seward, “Letter LXII. Miss Helen Williams, at Paris.”, in Letters of Anna Seward: Written between the Years 1784 and 1807. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] George Ramsay & Company, for Archibald Constable and Company; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, William Miller, and John Murray, published 1811, →OCLC, page 204:
text: Marriage had baſtilled me for life.
ref: 1798, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, “[Maria: or, The] Wrongs of Woman”, in W[illiam] Godwin, editor, Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. […], volume II, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […]; and G[eorge,] G[eorge] and J[ohn] Robinson, […], →OCLC, chapter X, page 34:
text: 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.
ref: 1845, Alexandre Dumas, “What Takes Place at the House in the Rue du Bac while Waiting for Gaston”, in Charles H. Town, transl., The Regent’s Daughter. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, part III, page 72, column 1:
text: "Ideas cannot be Bastilled. They pierce walls, vaults—" / "No phrases, my dear fellow: that does very well for the public, otherwise the fools. Ideas are very easily Bastilled, as you call it."
ref: 1852, chapter VI, in The Court and the Desert; or, Priests, Pastors, and Philosophers, in the Time of Louis XV. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley […], →OCLC, page 109:
text: All the doleful stories of prisoners of earlier or later ages, in the Bastile, including much sentimental balderdash, are drawled out by a very stupid and would-be effective writer, for the purpose of proving that the imprisonment of political offenders and captives by the North is precisely on a par with that of ‘Bastiling’ them, and that Abraham Lincoln is only a revival of the worst kings of France in an American form.
ref: 1862 October, “A Southern Review”, in [Charles Godfrey Leland], editor, The Continental Monthly. Devoted to Literature and National Policy, volume II, number IV, New York, N.Y.: John F[owler] Trow, […], →OCLC, page 467, column 1:
text: I know that peaceable and unoffending citizens of my own State have been "bastiled" in different parts of the United States—"cut off from their family, their friends, and their every connection."
ref: 1863 January 8, Willard Saulsbury Sr., “Discharge of State Prisoners”, in John C. Rives, editor, The Congressional Globe: […] (United States Senate, 27th Congress, 3rd session), number 15 (New Series), Washington, D.C.: John C. Rives […] , →OCLC, page 233, column 2:
text: For a lampoon on the Regent [Philippe II, Duke of Orléans] he [Voltaire] had been bastilled. For a fight with Rohan [Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot] he had been bastilled again. In prison he had changed his name and dreamt of liberty.
ref: 1904 August, S. G. Tallentyre, “The English Friends of Voltaire”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XVII, number 98 (New Series), London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 221:
text: Although people equated going into a workhouse with being "bastilled," this was not the sure result of asking a relieving officer for help. Before the 1870s, most London paupers received cash or bread weekly according to local officials' scale of what constituted fair or equitable relief.
ref: 1990, Lynn Hollen Lees, “The Survival of the Unfit: Welfare Policies and Family Maintenance in Nineteenth-century London”, in Peter Mandler, editor, The Uses of Charity: the Poor on Relief in the Nineteenth-century Metropolis, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, pages 72–73:
synonyms: word: bang up
word: bastille
word: clap up
word: confine
word: gaol
word: incarcerate
word: immure
word: imprison
word: jail
word: lock up
word: mew up
word: put away
word: roof
word: send down
glosses: To confine (someone or something) in, or as if in, a bastille (noun sense 2.1) or prison; to imprison.