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:
Khan's lawyer claimed at the time that his client had 15% vision left in his right eye after prison authorities failed to take action.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
He was instead seen by doctors at a government-run hospital in Islamabad, who deemed him "medically fit", before he was moved back to prison.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Maurice Hastings, 70, who spent 38 years in prison before being found factually innocent, accepted a $25-million settlement from the city of Inglewood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
A third defendant, Albert Ho, pleaded guilty at the start of the trial, and all three face prison terms of up to 10 years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Here were the prison things we were to put on, piled just inside the door.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Male prisons have fewer than 1,800 spaces available in England and Wales, the lowest level since March.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
He explains how he believes Alcaraz’s tragic death likely came to be and how officers have become desensitized to issues afflicting America’s prisons.
From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2026
The government is set to release 5,000 offenders from October as part of new laws to create more space in overcrowded prisons.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
The proposal aimed to mirror models used by Norway and Belgium in the Netherlands, where both countries rented cells to deal with overcrowding in their prisons.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
Most overcrowded prisons don't have the capacity to provide care and treatment to the mentally ill.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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.
