JAIL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does jail mean? 

• JAIL (noun)
  The noun JAIL has 1 sense:

1. 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)

  Familiarity information: JAIL used as a noun is very rare.

• JAIL (verb)
  The verb JAIL has 1 sense:

1. lock up or confine, in or as in a jail

  Familiarity information: JAIL used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JAIL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

clink; gaol; jail; jailhouse; pokey; poky; slammer

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

correctional institution (a penal institution maintained by the government)

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

bastille (a jail or prison (especially one that is run in a tyrannical manner))

holding cell (a jail in a courthouse where accused persons can be confined during a trial)

hoosegow; hoosgow (slang for a jail)

house of correction ((formerly) a jail or other place of detention for persons convicted of minor offences)

lockup (jail in a local police station)

workhouse (a county jail that holds prisoners for periods up to 18 months)

Derivation:

jail (lock up or confine, in or as in a jail)

• JAIL (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they jail    ... he / she / it jails   
Past simple: jailed   
Past participle: jailed   
-ing form: jailing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lock up or confine, in or as in a jail

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

gaol; immure; imprison; incarcerate; jail; jug; lag; put away; put behind bars; remand

Context example:

the murderer was incarcerated for the rest of his life

Hypernyms (to "jail" is one way to...):

confine; detain (deprive of freedom; take into confinement)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to jail the prisoners

Derivation:

jail (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))

jailer; jailor (someone who guards prisoners)

 Context examples 

“I don’t know whether you think that McFarlane came out of jail in the dead of the night in order to strengthen the evidence against himself,” said Lestrade.

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

The state of being confined to jail or prison.

(Incarceration, NCI Thesaurus)

They raided his store last night, and he and his papers are all in Portsmouth jail.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Look to him! You shall be my witness. He shall see Winchester jail for this. See where he goes with my cloak under his arm!”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

These reminded me, in reference to Miss Murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

U.S. studies have reported that lead exposure causes what psychologists call externalizing behavior problems, such as aggressiveness and bullying, which may lead to truancy and even jail time as children get older.

(Lead in kids’ blood linked with behavioral and emotional problems, NIH)

They send them to jail.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

His mind seemed to turn, on the instant, into a vast camera obscura, and he saw arrayed around his consciousness endless pictures from his life, of stoke-holes and forecastles, camps and beaches, jails and boozing-kens, fever-hospitals and slum streets, wherein the thread of association was the fashion in which he had been addressed in those various situations.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Some were undone by lawsuits; others spent all they had in drinking, whoring, and gaming; others fled for treason; many for murder, theft, poisoning, robbery, perjury, forgery, coining false money, for committing rapes, or sodomy; for flying from their colours, or deserting to the enemy; and most of them had broken prison; none of these durst return to their native countries, for fear of being hanged, or of starving in a jail; and therefore they were under the necessity of seeking a livelihood in other places.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)