Jail
[dʒeɪl] or [dʒel]
Definition
(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).
Checker: Zachariah--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) 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.
(v. t.) To imprison.
Edited by Ingram
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [Written also, but not commonly, Gaol.] Prison, penitentiary, bridewell, workhouse, TOLLBOOTH, JUG, house of correction.
Checker: Thomas
Definition
n. a prison.—ns. Jail′-bird Gaol′-bird a humorous name for one who is or has been confined in jail; Jail′er Gaol′er one who has charge of a jail or of prisoners called also a turnkey; Jail′-fē′ver Gaol′-fē′ver typhus fever so called because once common in jails.—Break jail to force one's way out of prison; Commission of Jail Delivery one of the commissions issued to judges of assize and judges of the Central Criminal Court in England.
Checked by Conan
Unserious Contents or Definition
To see others in jail, you will be urged to grant privileges to persons whom you believe to be unworthy To see negroes in jail, denotes worries and loss through negligence of underlings. For a young woman to dream that her lover is in jail, she will be disappointed in his character, as he will prove a deceiver. See Gaol.
Checker: Mae
Examples
- In the jail also was a half-breed horse-thief. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- Presently afterwards, Young John disappeared into the jail. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- A certain set of words and phrases, as much belonging to tourists as the College and the Snuggery belonged to the jail, was always in their mouths. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and a rubber, and I should never care to come out. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- Almost as dull as the infernal old jail. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- Sugden took the reins--he drives like Jehu--and in another quarter of an hour Barraclough will be safe in Stilbro' jail. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- The evils of prostitution are seen as a series of episodes, each of which must be clubbed, forbidden, raided and jailed. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- May be said to live in jails, this boy. Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- Some of our best-intentioned political schemes, like reform colonies and scientific jails, turn out to be inhuman tyrannies just because our imagination does not penetrate the sociological label. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
Typed by Billie