jail

English

Alternative forms

• gaol (British, Australian)

Etymology

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”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl

Noun

jail (countable and uncountable; plural jails)

1. 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.
2. (uncountable) Confinement in a jail.
   • 2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, Guardian:

     He said Robins had not been in trouble with the law before and had no previous convictions. Jail would have an adverse effect on her and her three children as she was the main carer.

3. (slang) school

   I have to go to jail 5 days a week.

4. (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).

Usage notes

• (prison): 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 popularized the spelling jail in the UK and Australia, gaol was the standard spelling in these countries.

Synonyms

• slammer

Coordinate terms

• (place of confinement): big house, hoosegow, prison

Derived terms

• jailbait
• jailbird
• jailbreak
• jailer
• jail sentence

Translations

prison — see prison

Verb

jail (third-person singular simple present jails, present participle jailing, simple past and past participle jailed)

1. To imprison.

Synonyms

• imprison

Translations

imprison — see imprison