dungeon

nounverbcommon in dialogue

//ˈdʌn.d͡ʒən//

An underground prison or vault, typically built underneath a castle.

noun

1
An underground prison or vault, typically built underneath a castle.
Year after year he lay patiently in a dungeon.
They could still hear him for some time shouting out things about having the law of them while being bounced down to the deepest dungeon of the castle.
2
The low area between two drumlins.
3
obsoleteThe main tower of a motte or castle; a keep or donjon.
4
obsoleteA shrewd person.
5
An area inhabited by enemies, containing story objectives, treasure, and bosses.
6
A room dedicated to sadomasochistic sexual activity.

Etymology

From Middle English dongeoun (“keep of a castle; dungeon; abyss, cave, den; whirlpool”), from Anglo-Norman donjun (“keep of a castle; keep used as a prison; dungeon”) and continental Old French donjon (“keep of a castle”), from Vulgar Latin *dominiōnem, seemingly derived from Latin dominus (“master, lord”) perhaps via some figurative sense like “dominant building”. Doublet of donjon. The sense of “prison (associated with a castle)”, first attested in Anglo-Norman (13th c.) and apparently never in continental Old French, likely developed in combination with Old English dung (“underground prison cell”), whence Middle English donge (“pit, abyss”, senses that are also attested for Middle English dongeoun). The game term has been popularized by Dungeons & Dragons.

verb

1
To imprison in a dungeon.
Of every act of severity, of every bold violation of the constitution, of every bill for dungeoning and gagging the people, of every tax, of every loan, of all that set frugality at defiance, and that mocked at mercy, these men had been either the authors or the most strenuous supporters […]

Forms

plural: dungeons
past tense: dungeoned
past participle: dungeoned
present participle: dungeoning
third person singular: dungeons

Duncan · A male given name from Scottish Gaelic anglicized from…dung · Manure; animal excrement.Dung · A female given name from Vietnamese.

dungeon · An underground prison or vault, typically built underneath a castle.

Dunham · A surname from Old English.dunk · To submerge briefly in a liquid.Dunk · A surname.

The neighbouring pages — Alphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.