castellum
Americannoun
plural
castelli-
a small isolated fortress, or one of a series of such fortresses, of the ancient Romans.
Etymology
Origin of castellum
< Latin: fortified settlement, fortress < *casterlom < *castṛlom < *castrelom, equivalent to castr ( a ) (neuter plural) fortified camp + *-elom diminutive suffix; -ule, -elle
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.
Head first to 2,000-year-old Dom Square, where the Romans built the castellum Traiectum, a fort that became the city’s foundation.
From Washington Post • Jan. 29, 2020
In the twenty years since—this was a project with many political moments, many waves—a western section has become an archeological museum, housed in a wooden reconstruction of a Roman castellum.
From The New Yorker • May 16, 2016
It was not a camp, sir, a castrum, but a castellum, a little camp, or watch-station, to which was attached, on the peak of the adjacent hill, a beacon for transmitting alarms.
From Crotchet Castle by Peacock, Thomas Love
Atque vltrà montem in discensu eius in orientem est villa siue castellum Bethaniæ, distans quasi ad leucam ab vrbe vbi in domo cuiusdam Symonis inuitatu Christus condonauit omnia peccata Mariæ Magdalenæ.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 08 Asia, Part I by Hakluyt, Richard
The Romans seldom or hardly ever chose a Celtic site for a new building, but, to quote Guest again, "generally built their castellum two or three miles from the British oppidum."
From Memorials of Old London Volume I by Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
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.