prison Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a correctional institution where persons are confined while on trial or for punishment
    prison house.
  2. noun a prisonlike situation; a place of seeming confinement
    prison house.

WordNet

Pris"on noun
Etymology
F., fr. L. prehensio, prensio, a seizing, arresting, fr. prehendre, prendere, to lay hold of, to seize. See Prehensile, and cf. Prize, n., Misprision.
Definitions
  1. A place where persons are confined, or restrained of personal liberty; hence, a place or state o confinement, restraint, or safe custody.
    Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name. Ps. cxlii. 7.
    The tyrant Æolus, . . . With power imperial, curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. Dryden.
  2. Specifically, a building for the safe custody or confinement of criminals and others committed by lawful authority.
Pris"on transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Prisoned ; present participle & verbal noun Prisoning
Definitions
  1. To imprison; to shut up in, or as in, a prison; to confine; to restrain from liberty.
    The prisoned eagle dies for rage. Sir W. Scott.
    His true respect will prison false desire. Shak.
  2. To bind (together); to enchain. Obs.
    Sir William Crispyn with the duke was led Together prisoned. Robert of Brunne.

Webster 1913