calaboose
Americannoun
noun
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Etymology
Origin of calaboose
An Americanism dating back to 1785–95; from Louisiana French calabouse, from Spanish calabozo “dungeon,” of obscure origin
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.
“By that last part, he is referring to another slang term, ‘cally,’ which is a police station, short for “calaboose,” derived from the Spanish “calabozo,” Barrett clarified.
From Los Angeles Times
And can someone catapult Steve Bannon into the calaboose already?
From Slate
Yet for many Americans, especially younger ones, going home for Thanksgiving is a weekend in the calaboose.
“I picked up a side of the sheet and walked right in the calaboose with the men. I walked in the calaboose carrying a rotten dead Negro.”
From Literature
He said, “When I passed the calaboose, some men had just fished him out of the pond. He was wrapped in a sheet, all rolled up like a mummy, then a white man walked over and pulled the sheet off. The man was on his back but the white man stuck his foot under the sheet and rolled him over on the stomach.”
From Literature
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.
