prison
Americannoun
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prisons
plural
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a building for the confinement of persons held while awaiting trial, persons sentenced after conviction, etc.
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any place of confinement or involuntary restraint.
noun
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a public building used to house convicted criminals and accused persons remanded in custody and awaiting trial See also jail penitentiary reformatory
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any place of confinement or seeming confinement
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of prison
before 1150; Middle English prison, earlier prisun < Old French, variant of preson imprisonment, a prison < Latin pre ( hē ) nsiōn- (stem of prehēnsiō ) a seizure, arrest, equivalent to prehēns ( us ) (past participle of prehendere to seize) + -iōn- -ion; doublet of prehension
Explanation
A prison is a place where criminals and people waiting for trials are locked up. If you’ve been cooped up in the house, you might feel like you’re stuck inside prison walls. But if you’re not, go outside already. A person who's been sentenced to time in prison is called a prisoner. Prisons vary, but usually prisoners are confined to a small cell, with time spent in large groups for eating, working, and exercise. If you feel like you're stuck in a place or a situation, you might call that prison: "I can't wait to go home — this summer camp is like a prison!" The Latin root is prension, "laying hold of."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Two of his killers – Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers – will be eligible for early release next year under revised government plans to tackle prison overcrowding.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Castillo is meanwhile serving a prison sentence exceeding 11 years, which Mexico continues to dispute.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
Certain congregants encouraged Hackney to stay with Sam after his arrest, which the author said didn’t result in a trial or prison time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
She and Castillo were both sentenced to more than 11 years in prison last November.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
I email her agent and check the California prison website.
From "The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman" by Gennifer Choldenko
My friend Susan Slotnick taught modern dance to incarcerated men inside New York state prisons for over 20 years.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
By comparison, federal prisons in fiscal year 2025 spent about $2,700 per inmate on external medical care.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Grassroots efforts at the municipal level have been far more effective in galvanizing resistance to the creation of new immigration prisons.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
Last month, the authorities announced plans to convert disused state buildings into prisons.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
When people are released from Illinois prisons, they are given as little as $10 in “gate money” and a bus ticket to anywhere in the United States.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
