Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Jail
Jail
(jāl)
, Noun.
[OE.
jaile
, gail
, gayhol
, OF. gaole
, gaiole
, jaiole
, F. geôle
, LL. gabiola
, dim. of gabia
cage, for L. cavea
cavity, cage. See Cage
.] 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.
[Written also
gaol
.] This
jail
I count the house of liberty. Milton.
Jail delivery
, the release of prisoners from jail, either legally or by violence.
– Jail delivery commission
. See under
– Gaol
. Jail fever
(Med.)
, typhus fever, or a disease resembling it, generated in jails and other places crowded with people; – called also
– hospital fever
, and ship fever
. Jail liberties
, or Jail limits
a space or district around a jail within which an imprisoned debtor was, on certain conditions, allowed to go at large.
Abbott.
– Jail lock
, a peculiar form of padlock; – called also
Scandinavian lock
.Jail
,Verb.
T.
To imprison.
[R.]
T. Adams (1614).
[Bolts] that
jail
you from free life. Tennyson.
Webster 1828 Edition
Jail
JAIL
,Noun.
Definition 2024
jail
jail
English
Alternative forms
- gaol (UK, Australia, Ireland)
Noun
jail (countable and uncountable, plural jails)
- A place or institution for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody or detention, especially for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
- 1966, Robert Coover, “Part II, section 11”, in The Origin of the Brunists, first edition, page 218:
- Taking a shower at the high school, Tommy (the Kitten) Cavanaugh kids Ugly Palmers. "Ugly, if you think the world is coming to an end," he says, "what are you wasting your time here at this jail for? You gonna need American history up there?"
-
- (uncountable) Confinement in a jail.
- (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).
- In dodgeball and related games, the area where players who have been struck by the ball are confined.
Usage notes
- (place of confinement): Like many nouns denoting places where people spend time, jail requires no article after certain prepositions: hence in jail (“detained in a jail”), go to jail (“become detained in a jail”), and so on. The forms in a jail, go to a jail, and so on do exist, but tend to imply mere presence in the jail, rather than detention there.
- Until Monopoly popularised the spelling jail in the UK and Australia, gaol was the standard spelling in these countries.
Synonyms
Hypernyms
- (place of confinement): correctional facility, correctional institution
Coordinate terms
Derived terms
Terms derived from jail
Translations
place for short-term confinement for those convicted of minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding
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Verb
jail (third-person singular simple present jails, present participle jailing, simple past and past participle jailed)
- To imprison.
- 2013 August 10, “Can China clean up fast enough?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
- It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.
-
Synonyms
Translations
imprison — see imprison