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.
-
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:
The bar for a criminal conviction is higher, for good reason, since it could result in prison time rather than a financial penalty.
From Slate ● Oct. 25, 2026
After all, Hegseth has served as a platoon leader in the National Guard and as a prison guard for a little while, so he knew what he was talking about.
From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2026
The fact that Arif Patel has not served a single day of his 20-year prison sentence clearly rankles with Stone.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
Courts have already sent 217 people, half of them first-time offenders, to prison over the events on Saturday, officials said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2026
He’d been immediately captured, flown to Moscow, and locked in prison.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
He has promised to resolve Brazil's crime woes, create 500,000 more spots in prisons and slash government spending.
From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2026
Couvy said France lacked enough prosecutors and judges to handle the cases, while overcrowded prisons limited the courts’ ability to impose custodial sentences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2026
Drugs for lethal injections are also hard to obtain because many pharmaceutical companies do not want to sell the medications to prisons for that use, since they were developed for life-saving purposes.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026
The scheme was brought in to relieve pressure on prisons across England and Wales which were dangerously close to reaching full capacity.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
I’ve watched enough TV to know that cafeterias are rooms of torture and humiliation in both schools and prisons.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
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