bastide (basted)

[F., a farm-house, a fortre , OF. bastir = Pr. bastir, build: see bastile, bastion.] 1. A small fort i fied building, often of timber, corresponding nearly to a modern blockhouse. -2t. A temporary or movable hut or tower erected for besieging purposes. See bastile, 4.-3. A small farm-house or country dwelling in the south of seilles. France, especially in the neighborhood of Mar bastile, bastille (bas-tel'), n. [In spelling and pron. conformed to mod. F.; tille, bastele, bastel, etc., bastille, OF. bastir, F. bátir = Pr. OSp. bastir = It. bastire ), build, of unknown origin; referred by Diez to Gr. βαστάζειν, raise, support.] 1. A bridge-tower, gate-tower, outlying defense, or citadel. At vch brugge a berfray on basteles wyse, That seuen sythe vch a day asayled the gates. Alliterative Poems (ed. Morris), ii. 1187. 2. In French hist . , a fortre used as a state prison. Many French cities had bastiles of this kind in feudal times, but the one especially known is that of Paris, called specifically the Bastille . It commanded the Porte St. Antoine, and its erection was begun by Charles V. in 1369. This, being of peculiar strength, remained after the other medieval fortifications of the city had been removed, and its use as a prison for persons confined at the arbitrary will of the king or his ministers gave it celebrity as a reputed stronghold of royal despotism and cruelty. It was stormed with much bloodshed by the populace July 14, 1789, and was demolished To beat with a stick or cudgel; specifically, to beat on the buttocks or the soles of the feet, as a judicial punishment. The Sallee rover, who threatened to bastinado a Christian captive to death. Macaulay , Hist. Eng.