INMATE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does inmate mean? 

• INMATE (noun)
  The noun INMATE has 3 senses:

1. one of several resident of a dwelling (especially someone confined to a prison or hospital)

2. a patient who is residing in the hospital where he is being treated

3. a person serving a sentence in a jail or prison

  Familiarity information: INMATE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INMATE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of several resident of a dwelling (especially someone confined to a prison or hospital)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("inmate" is a kind of...):

occupant; occupier; resident (someone who lives at a particular place for a prolonged period or who was born there)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A patient who is residing in the hospital where he is being treated

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

inmate; inpatient

Hypernyms ("inmate" is a kind of...):

patient (a person who requires medical care)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person serving a sentence in a jail or prison

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

con; convict; inmate; yard bird; yardbird

Hypernyms ("inmate" is a kind of...):

captive; prisoner (a person who is confined; especially a prisoner of war)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inmate"):

lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)

trusty (a convict who is considered trustworthy and granted special privileges)

 Context examples 

Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I warned the inmates of the house, so as to avoid a second tragedy, and we went down, with the happiest results.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Were the inmates retired to rest?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

All that we have any business to know is that John did not appear to object, judging from the changes which gradually took place in the house and its inmates.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of the latter with regard to new furniture.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The days had gone by when a nobleman's hall was but a barn-like, rush-strewn enclosure, the common lounge and eating-room of every inmate of the castle.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On the contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

So disturbed was I that I determined to see a little more of the new inmates of the cottage.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But there was no unusual sound—nothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)