Devil's Island

American

noun

one of the Safety Islands, off the coast of French Guiana: former French penal colony.

Devil's Island British

noun

French name: Île du Diable. one of the three Safety Islands, off the coast of French Guiana: formerly a leper colony, then a French penal colony from 1895 until 1938. Area: less than 2 sq km (1 sq mile)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Devil's Island

Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous Devil's Island penal colony in French Guiana and publicly stripped of his rank.

From Barron's ● Nov. 18, 2025

He compared the ICC to the antisemitic conspiracy that sent Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, to the penal colony on Devil's Island for treason in 1894.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2025

Devil’s Island in French Guiana, immortalized in the film “Papillon,” closed in 1946.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 9, 2022

Poetry seems to be the Devil’s Island of literature.

From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2021

The first time I set foot in Chokecherry, Colorado, I thought I’d been banished to Devil’s Island.

From "Linked" by Gordon Korman

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023