jail

Meanings

Noun

• A place or institution for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody or detention, especially (in US usage) a place where people are held for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
• Confinement in a jail.
• The condition created by the requirement that a horse claimed in a claiming race not be run at another track for some period of time (usually 30 days).
• In dodgeball and related games, the area where players who have been struck by the ball are confined.
• A kind of sandbox for running a guest operating system instance.

Verb

• To imprison.

Related

Similar words

• imprison
• incarcerate

Origin

• From Middle English gayole, gaylle, gaille, gayle, gaile, via Old French gaiole, gayolle, gaole, from Medieval Latin gabiola, for Vulgar Latin *caveola, a diminutive of Latin cavea ("cavity, coop, cage"). cage.