Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A jail.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A prison; especially, a common jail or lockup.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Local, U. S. A prison; a jail.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US, dialect A
prison orgaol /jail .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The calaboose is a miserable dark room of two apartments, one with a small loop-hole in the wall, the other a dungeon without light or ventilation.
What I Saw in California Edwin Bryant
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On this deck, too, was the prisoners 'cell, usually called the "calaboose," very rarely without an occupant, with an armed sentry on guard outside.
Five Months on a German Raider Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' Frederic George Trayes
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And Signet, guttersnipe, beach comber, and midnight assassin, was lodged in the "calaboose," built stoutly in a corner of the biggest and reddest of the Dutchman's godowns.
The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various 1915
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The horizontal ray struck through the grating of the "calaboose" at the corner of the godown I was skirting.
The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various 1915
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"He stayed down to the 'calaboose' to guard the prisoners," said
The Daughter of Anderson Crow George Barr McCutcheon 1897
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They entered the "calaboose," which now had all the looks and odours of
The Daughter of Anderson Crow George Barr McCutcheon 1897
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When the railroad tapped the village, and it was incorporated (1884) and assumed an official worldliness with its mayor and councilmen, it lost its isolation, summer visitors flocked in, and a "calaboose" was needed for the benefit of the sojourners!
Our Foreigners A Chronicle of Americans in the Making Samuel Peter Orth 1897
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He was the only inmate of the "calaboose"; therefore, he was in no doubt as to the identity of the person to whom so many different terms of opprobrium were being applied by certain loud-voiced citizens in the crowd.
Viola Gwyn George Barr McCutcheon 1897
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On Monday morning he had ventured forth from his office in the long-deserted "calaboose," resplendent in a brand-new nickel-plated star.
The Daughter of Anderson Crow George Barr McCutcheon 1897
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The "calaboose" was situated at the far end of Main
The Daughter of Anderson Crow George Barr McCutcheon 1897
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