prison
Americannoun
-
a building for the confinement of persons held while awaiting trial, persons sentenced after conviction, etc.
-
any place of confinement or involuntary restraint.
noun
-
a public building used to house convicted criminals and accused persons remanded in custody and awaiting trial See also jail penitentiary reformatory
-
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:
The MSP told BBC Scotland News that he received a letter a few weeks ago informing him that Burns would be leaving prison this week.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
The elder Gray has yet to be sentenced, and could face a maximum of 180 years in prison.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
He was released in June after spending more than five years in prison for subversion and other convictions.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
A British funeral director faced prison Monday over a scandal that saw bodies left "stored on racks" and uncremated while relatives were handed other people's ashes, sparking calls for better regulation of the industry.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Perugia was now a celebrity, but he was still in prison, and he couldn’t understand why.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Dark tourism research reveals that people are drawn to places associated with death, disaster, tragedy and the uncanny, whether former prisons, abandoned sites, or locations connected to unsettling historical events.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
He acknowledged that there was "pressure on prisons places" and that a failure to invest in the prison system in the past had created "an unacceptable situation".
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
Dhillon said both investigations into the two women’s prisons are “being pursued vigorously and simultaneously.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
“Excuse me? Do they have prisons for kids?” he asked the men in the front seat.
From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman
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.
