Illustration of castle
- 1 fortified approach
- 2 moat
- 3 drawbridge
- 4 ward
- 5 angle tower
- 6 donjon or keep
- 7 chapel
- 8 gallery
1
a
: a large fortified building or set of buildings
b
: a massive or imposing house
2
: a retreat safe against intrusion or invasion
3
castled; castling
ˈka-s(ə-)liŋ 
: to move a chess king two squares toward a rook and in the same move the rook to the square next past the king
Examples of castle in a Sentence
Noun
Millionaires built their castles along the lake.
the implacable attackers placed the castle under a prolonged siege
Recent Examples on the Web
Siobhan Reid, Travel + Leisure, 31 Dec. 2025
Other castles featured at Disney theme parks across the globe include Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris, Castle of Magical Dreams at Hong Kong Disneyland and the Enchanted Storybook Castle at Shanghai Disneyland.
—Nicholas Rice, PEOPLE, 27 Dec. 2025
Tim Ellis, Forbes, 4 Mar. 2025
For example, pawns could not move two squares on their first turn, and there was no similar rule for castling.
—Dylan Loeb McClain, New York Times, 27 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for castle
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Noun
Guests can stay in the original 15th-century stone castle, where local designers Eva-Maria Bauer and Gerhard Stahl incorporated pine parquet floors and dark green Austrian loden wool accents as an homage to the property’s hunting lodge past.
—Siobhan Reid, Travel + Leisure, 31 Dec. 2025
Other castles featured at Disney theme parks across the globe include Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris, Castle of Magical Dreams at Hong Kong Disneyland and the Enchanted Storybook Castle at Shanghai Disneyland.
—Nicholas Rice, PEOPLE, 27 Dec. 2025
Verb
The proactive Axar Patel hit an aggressive 27 before being castled by Nathan Ellis.
—Tim Ellis, Forbes, 4 Mar. 2025
For example, pawns could not move two squares on their first turn, and there was no similar rule for castling.
—Dylan Loeb McClain, New York Times, 27 May 2023
See All Example Sentences for castle
Cite this Entry
“Castle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/castle. Accessed 2 Jan. 2026.
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