Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A place of detention, especially for persons who are accused of committing a crime and have not been released on bail or for persons who are serving short sentences after conviction of a misdemeanor.
  • noun Detention in a jail.
  • transitive verb To detain in a jail.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A prison; a building or place for the confinement of persons arrested for crime or for debt; usually, in the United States, a place of confinement for minor offenses in a county.
  • To confine in or as if in a jail; imprison.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb rare To imprison.
  • noun A kind of prison; a building for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody, especially for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
  • noun the release of prisoners from jail, either legally or by violence.
  • noun See under Gaol.
  • noun (Med.) typhus fever, or a disease resembling it, generated in jails and other places crowded with people; -- called also hospital fever, and ship fever.
  • noun a space or district around a jail within which an imprisoned debtor was, on certain conditions, allowed to go at large.
  • noun a peculiar form of padlock; -- called also Scandinavian lock.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A place for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody or detention, especially for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
  • noun uncountable Confinement in a jail.
  • noun slang school
  • noun horse racing The condition created by the requirement that a horse claimed in a claiming race not be run at another track for some period of time (usually 30 days).
  • verb To imprison.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb lock up or confine, in or as in a jail
  • noun a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English jaiole (from Old French) and from Middle English gaiol, gaol (from Old North French gaiole), both from Vulgar Latin *gaviola, from Latin *caveola, diminutive of cavea, cage, hollow.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gaiole, gayle, gaile, gayll, via Old French gaiole, gaole, geole, geole, from Medieval Latin gabiola, for *caveola, a diminutive of Latin cavea ("cavity, coop, cage").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word jail.

Examples

  • Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue.

    Geert Wilders banned from the UK but here's what he would have said Not a sheep 2009

  • So putting two people in jail is a human rights violation, but her husband's actions, who caused about 100,000+ deaths, in Iraq is not?

    Laura Bush speaks out on Burma 2009

  • Assuming all judicial systems around the world are basically right and that everyone in jail is supposed to be there, the United States of America (home of the brave and land of the free) is by far the most criminally-infested country in the world, followed only by Russia.

    criminal insanity 2009

  • Nicole True, Mr. Jimenez Ruano 's lawyer, said, "People forget that the way someone ends up in jail is based on a human being making a decision."

    Deportation Program Grows Ana Campoy 2010

  • The AG that should be in jail is the current AG and the POTUS for war crimes and crimes against humanity and trampling the Constitution.

    Ex-AG Gonzales lands Texas Tech job 2009

  • Assuming all judicial systems around the world are basically right and that everyone in jail is supposed to be there, the United States of America (home of the brave and land of the free) is by far the most criminally-infested country in the world, followed only by Russia.

    criminal insanity 2009

  • Assuming all judicial systems around the world are basically right and that everyone in jail is supposed to be there, the United States of America (home of the brave and land of the free) is by far the most criminally-infested country in the world, followed only by Russia.

    11 posts from May 2009 2009

  • Assuming all judicial systems around the world are basically right and that everyone in jail is supposed to be there, the United States of America (home of the brave and land of the free) is by far the most criminally-infested country in the world, followed only by Russia.

    Geopolitics 2010

  • Scott Norberg, (google his name) who died in jail, is an example.

    Outspoken sheriff won't run for governor in Arizona 2010

  • I speak from personal experience when I say that all most of them are concerned about when they are put in jail is getting out and getting on with THEIR lives.

    2008 August 12 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Sounds like the letters J L.

    October 28, 2009