bastion

plural bastions

1. architectureA projecting part of a rampart or other fortification.

   […] Fort Camosun had swelled herself from being a little Hudson's Bay Fort, inside a stockade with bastions at the corners, into being the little town of Victoria, and the capital of British Columbia.

   1942, Emily Carr, “Beginnings”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC

2. A well-fortified position; a stronghold or citadel.
3. figurativelyA person, group, or thing, that strongly defends some principle.

   a bastion of hope

   1 more example

   the bastion of democracy

4. Any large prominence; something that resembles a bastion in size and form.

   […] yonder cloud That rises upward always higher, ⁠And onward drags a labouring breast, ⁠And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 24

   1 more example

   It spread slowly up from the sea-rim, a welling upwards of pure white light, ghosting the beach with silver and drawing the grey bastions of sandstone out of formless space.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 32

present singular third person bastions · participle present bastioning · participle past bastioned · past bastioned

1. transitiveTo furnish with a bastion.