bastille

Bastille
    n 1: a fortress built in Paris in the 14th century and used as a
         prison in the 17th and 18th centuries; it was destroyed
         July 14, 1789 at the start of the French Revolution
    2: a jail or prison (especially one that is run in a tyrannical
       manner)
    

Bastile \Bas*tile"\ Bastille \Bas*tille"\(b[.a]s*t[=e]l" or
   b[.a]s"t[-e]l; 277), n. [F. bastille fortress, OF. bastir to
   build, F. b[^a]tir.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. (Feud. Fort.) A tower or an elevated work, used for the
      defense, or in the siege, of a fortified place.
      [1913 Webster]

            The high bastiles . . . which overtopped the walls.
                                                  --Holland.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. "The Bastille", formerly a castle or fortress in Paris,
      used as a prison, especially for political offenders;
      hence, a rhetorical name for a prison.
      [1913 Webster]
    

58 Moby Thesaurus words for "bastille":
      POW camp, black hole, borstal, borstal institution, bridewell,
      brig, bucket, caboose, calaboose, can, cell, chokey,
      concentration camp, condemned cell, confine, constrain, death cell,
      death house, death row, detention camp, federal prison,
      forced-labor camp, gaol, guardhouse, hoosegow, house of correction,
      house of detention, immure, incarcerate, industrial school, intern,
      internment camp, jail, jailhouse, jug, keep, labor camp, lockup,
      maximum-security prison, minimum-security prison, oubliette, pen,
      penal colony, penal institution, penal settlement, penitentiary,
      prison, prison camp, prisonhouse, quod, reform school, reformatory,
      sponging house, state prison, stockade, the hole, tollbooth,
      training school