jailnoun [ C or U ]
UK old-fashioned gaol uk/dʒeɪl/us/dʒeɪl/B1 a place where criminals are kept to punish them for their crimes, or where people accused of crimes are kept while waiting for their trials:
the country's overcrowded jails
a 13-year jail sentence/term
The financier was released from jail last week.
They spent ten years in jail for fraud.
They don't throw anyone in jail for parking illegally, but they will tow your car and charge you a fine.
More examples
- Arrangements were made to move the prisoners to another jail.
- He faces three years in jail for selling narcotics.
- He's stayed out of trouble since he was released from jail last year.
- There has been a mass breakout from one of Germany's top security jails.
- He has been languishing in jail for the past 20 years.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Prisons & parts of prisons
- approved school
- Bastille
- boot camp
- borstal
- brig
- clink
- gaoler
- halfway house
- HMP
- house of correction
- jailer
- matron
- prison camp
- protective custody
- remand centre
- screw
- seclusion room
- slop
- straightjacket
- straitjacket
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jailverb [ T often passive ]
UK old-fashioned gaol uk/dʒeɪl/us/dʒeɪl/to put someone in a jail:
He was jailed for three years.
More examples
- He was jailed for four months for drink-driving.
- Protestors were executed, jailed or otherwise persecuted.
- He was jailed for 15 years for stabbing his wife to death.
- California's "three strikes and you're out" bill means that from now on criminals found guilty of three crimes are jailed for life.
- He was jailed for revealing secrets to the Russians.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Putting people in prison
- at His/Her Majesty's pleasure idiom
- bang
- bang sb up
- bar
- behind bars idiom
- bird
- hold
- immured
- imprison
- incarcerate
- internment
- lag
- lock
- pen
- restraint
- rot
- rot in jail, prison, etc. idiom
- send
- send sb down
- serve
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