bastion

noun bas·tion \ ˈbas-chən \

|Updated on: 18 Jun 2018

Examples: bastion in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of bastion

1 : a projecting part of a fortification

a bastion at each of the fort's five corners

2 : a fortified area or position

bombing island bastions

3 : stronghold 2

the last bastion of academic standards
—Amer. Scientist

—

bastioned

play \-chənd\ adjective

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Examples of bastion in a Sentence

the rebel army retreated to its bastion in the mountains to regroup

Recent Examples of bastion from the Web

Photo: Ben Margot/Associated Press Conservatives have complained for decades that college campuses are bastions of close-minded, liberal thinking.

— michelle hackman, WSJ, "College Students Suing Over Free Speech Get a Powerful Ally: The Trump Administration," 13 June 2018
To be clear, these all-male bastions are outliers, with the trend going in the right direction.

— claire zillman, Fortune, "These Are the 12 Fortune 500 Companies With Zero Women on Their Boards," 22 May 2018
Downtown is a bastion of tony antique shops, galleries and inventive restaurants.

— stephanie citron, baltimoresun.com, "Can’t-miss detours along Maryland's Eastern Shore to explore on your beach trip this summer," 8 May 2018
Prom has historically been a bastion of stereotypical gender roles.

— alia e. dastagir, USA TODAY, "Teens are breaking old rules about gender. Now they want to change old rules about prom.," 19 Apr. 2018
Like its promotional materials, the hierarchy of the tourism board is not exactly a bastion of diversity.

— adrian walker, BostonGlobe.com, "In boosting Boston, little emphasis on diversity," 9 Apr. 2018
California has long been the bastion of volleyball play, but Florida is narrowing the gap with talented players on the professional circuit.

— emmett hall, Sun-Sentinel.com, "U.S. Olympians secure gold in Beach Volleyball Major Series tournament," 11 Mar. 2018
More critically, while there are bastions of progressive overrepresentation (Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii), America’s least populous states, in the aggregate, lean firmly right.

— eric levitz, Daily Intelligencer, "The Case for New California," 17 Jan. 2018
Idlib, in the north, remains a major rebel bastion, but government forces are expected to leave that confrontation to a later stage.

— philip issa, USA TODAY, "Syrian army, police celebrate recapturing all of Damascus," 22 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bastion.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Bastion is constructed of etymological building blocks that are very similar to those of "bastille" (a word now used as a general term for a prison, but probably best known as the name of the Parisian fortress-turned-prison stormed by an angry mob at the start of the French Revolution). The history of "bastion" can be traced through Middle French to the Old Italian verb bastire, which means "to build." "Bastille" descends from the Old Occitan verb "bastir," which also means "to build." "Bastir" and "bastire" are themselves of Germanic origin and akin to the Old High German word besten, meaning "to patch."

Origin and Etymology of bastion

Middle French, from Old Italian bastione, augmentative of bastia fortress, derivative from dialect form of bastire to build, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German besten to patch

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1562

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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