prison

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Place of confinement

Nouns

1. prison, penitentiary; maximum, medium, or minimum security prison, jail, lockup, gaol, cage, coop, den, cell, oubliette; cell block; stronghold, fortress, keep, dungeon, Bastille; federal or state prison, city or county jail, tank, secure facility; Sing Sing, Dartmoor, Alcatraz, Bridewell, debtors' prison, prison farm, workhouse; guardroom, guardhouse; alimony jail; brig, hold; roundhouse, station house, station, police station; house of correction or detention, correctional institution, adjustment center, detention facility, quiet cell; reformatory, reform school, protectory; pen, fold, corral, pound; enclosure; penal colony or settlement; military prison, stockade; stocks, stone walls. Informal, lockup, cage of anger. Slang, jug, can, joint, calaboose, calabozo, hoosegow, pen, limbo, college, dog house, bucket, cow, crossbar [hotel], graystone college, city hotel, icebox, iron house, big house, stir, clink, cooler, slammer, school, gladiator farm or school, zoo, quad, pok[e]y, Club Fed. See restraint, punishment.

2. concentration or detention camp, compound, stalag; extermination center, death camp; Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Treblinka, Gulag; assembly center, relocation center.

3. shackles, bilboes, cangue, bastinado, flogging, rack, stocks, pillory, cat-o'-nine-tails; electric chair, firing squad, gas chamber, gibbet, guillotine, injection; [black] hole, solitary [confinement], drunk tank.

4. imprisonment, incarceration; mittimus; protective custody; prison term, time, commitment, confinement, lockdown, hitch, life sentence; death row; conjugal visit. Informal, short time. Slang, lag, time, nickel, dime, quarter.

5. prisoner, captive, felon; convict, inmate, détenu, detainee, jailbird; trusty, parolee; prisoner of war, POW; political prisoner, prisoner of conscience; ticket-of-leave man; chain gang. Slang, con, lifer, fish, punk.

6. warden, keeper, jailer, gaoler, turnkey, guard, warder. Slang, screw, roach, hack, the man, yard hack. See safety.

Verbs

1. imprison, immure, incarcerate, confine, entomb, put in irons; arrest, detain, take into custody, capture, pick up, apprehend, take prisoner, run in, lead into captivity; send to prison, commit; give in custody, subjugate. Informal, nab; put away. Slang, collar, haul or pull in, haul up.

2. be imprisoned, serve time. Slang, do time, go the full distance.

Adjectives — imprisoned, pent-up, under lock and key, behind bars; condemned; in custody, laid by the heels, under arrest, in hand. Informal, in lockup, inside. Slang, in stir, in the can, sent up, on ice, up the river.

Quotations — Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage (Richard Lovelace), While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free (Eugene Debs), The thoughts of a prisoner — they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).

Antonyms, see liberation, freedom.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. penitentiary, reformatory, prison house, panopticon, guardhouse, stockade; see also jail .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

penitentiary, penal institution, jail, house of detention, house of correction, lockup, cell, *cooler, *clink, *poky, *can, *hoosegow, *slammer, *big house. ''Stones of law.''—William Blake.

WORD FIND

• castle: dungeon

• cell search by guards: shakedown

• convicts chained together for work detail: chain gang

• death penalty: capital punishment

• division: ward

• drunks, overnight cell for: drunk tank

• early release for good behavior: parole

• famous: Alcatraz, Sing Sing, Newgate

• head: warden

• informer: *rat, fink

• inmates: convicts, *cons

• isolation cell: solitary confinement

• jailer: turnkey

• legal expert, prisoner who becomes: jailhouse lawyer

• life term, prisoner serving: *lifer

• military: stockade

• reforming of prisoner: rehabilitation

• return to life of crime after prison: recidivism

• section holding those sentenced to death: death row

• ship: brig

• smuggler of contraband: *mule

• spousal relations visit: conjugal visit

• transfer of prisoner to other jurisdiction: extradition

• youth: reformatory, reform school

• war camp: concentration camp

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun A place for the confinement of persons in lawful detention: brig, house of correction, jail, keep, penitentiary. Informal: lockup, pen3. Slang: big house, can, clink, cooler, coop, hoosegow, joint, jug, pokey1, slammer, stir2. Chiefly Regional: calaboose. See FREE.