The method would come to be known as “The Pennsylvania System” and the institution “a penitentiary.”
“I rediscovered my own humanity in the penitentiary,” he admits.
Walking past a large data center building, painted yellow like a penitentiary, I asked what went on inside.
Philadelphia coined the term ‘penitentiary’—and set the tone for prison reform.
To visit the penitentiary, where thirty Mormon bishops are imprisoned for polygamy.
To steal would be to go to the penitentiary or the State prison.
At best some crime, perhaps, which had sent him to the penitentiary.
But don't you know that what you have done is a penitentiary offence?
On one occasion it was only Mamie's cleverness and devotion that saved Johnny, for a time, from the penitentiary.
Mayo, they're going to railroad you to Atlanta penitentiary.
early 15c., "place of punishment for offenses against the church," from Medieval Latin penitentiaria, from fem. of penitentiarius (adj.) "of penance," from Latin paenitentia "penitence" (see penitence). Meaning "house of correction" (originally an asylum for prostitutes) is from 1806, short for penitentiary house (1776). Slang shortening pen is attested from 1884.
