bastion
Americannoun
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Fortification. a projecting portion of a rampart or fortification that forms an irregular pentagon attached at the base to the main work.
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a fortified place.
- Synonyms:
- citadel, stronghold, bulwark, fort, fortress
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anything seen as preserving or protecting some quality, condition, etc..
a bastion of solitude; a bastion of democracy.
noun
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a projecting work in a fortification designed to permit fire to the flanks along the face of the wall
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any fortified place
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a thing or person regarded as upholding or defending an attitude, principle, etc
the last bastion of opposition
Other Word Forms
- bastionary adjective
- bastioned adjective
Etymology
Origin of bastion
1590–1600; < Middle French < Italian bastione, equivalent to Upper Italian bastí ( a ) bastion, originally, fortified, built (cognate with Italian bastita, past participle of bastire to build < Germanic; baste 1 ) + -one augmentative suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Small towns, villages and hamlets -- home to around half of the central European nation's 9.5 million people -- have long been the bastion of the ruling Fidesz party.
From Barron's • Mar. 29, 2026
At that $500,000 price point, a buyer can still land a single-family home — an example of how the Midwest remains a bastion of affordability.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 11, 2026
Discovery, it is simultaneously tackling the last bastion where traditional TV has an edge over streamers: sports and live events.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 13, 2026
As a decentralized system whose channels and stations exist within the communities they serve, public media represents a last bastion of local and regional programming.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 29, 2025
Hull House had become a bastion of progressive thought inhabited by strong-willed young women, “interspersed,” as one visitor put it, “with earnest-faced, self-subordinating and mild-mannered men who slide from room to room apologetically.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
