prison
Americannoun
-
prisons
plural
-
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:
A company which runs a private prison and a health board has admitted criminal charges following the death of a prisoner who contracted Covid-19.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
Inmates in a women’s prison are crafting dolls in his likeness.
From Barron's ● Nov. 6, 2026
“There’s a personal incentive in intervention work to make amends for bad things you’ve done, give back, but there’s also the desire to not ever get arrested or go to jail or prison again.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026
After a turbulent upbringing that included stints in prison, he turned to doing gang intervention work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026
They had released it from its icy prison.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
“The scheme under investigation revolved around contracts worth approximately 2.45 billion pesos with the agency responsible for federal prisons, funds earmarked for the security of the country’s prison system.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026
Earlier this year, the new Syrian authorities that came to power after the fall of Bashar al-Assad took over the prisons holding the jihadists.
From Barron's ● Nov. 2, 2026
In 1960, having served five years in separate prisons, they were given new identities and moved away from New Zealand.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
It certainly keeps advisers, lawyers, doctors, therapists, courts and prisons in business.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026
That’s why operators are always real polite to people calling from prisons, Shadow had decided: they knew that he paid their wages.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
