jail

Pronunciation

• IPA: /dʒeɪl/^[1]

Etymology

It developed from two Middle English forms:^[2][3] inherited from Middle English jaiole, jaile,^[2][4] borrowed from Old French jaiole (“a cage; a prison”),^[4][2] and gaiol, gaole, from Old North French and Anglo-French gaiole, gaole, the form usual in Middle English manuscripts and familiar to Norman scribes.^[4][2][3] Both are from Medieval Latin gabiola, Vulgar Latin *gaviola,^[4][2][5] from Late Latin caveola, a diminutive of Latin cavea (“cage, enclosure, coop; a hollow, cavity”),^[4][2][6] from cavus “hollow”.^[7] It is related to cage and cave.^[7][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A jail, prison, and a birdcage: about 1275 in the OED,^[8] about 1300 in Etymonline, and about 1200 in surnames;^[4] gaiol probably before 1300 and jaiole before 1325, in Cursor Mundi, according to Barnhart.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The spelling jail is first recorded in Milton's Samson Agonistes (1674), and gaol, also found in Middle English and in old law books, was recorded again from 1689.^[2] Whatever the spelling, it is now pronounced “jail”; the OED says the persistence of gaol in Britain is chiefly due to statutory and official tradition.^[4] In the United States a jail is usually a place of confinement for petty offenders.^[4] In jail, to jail without an article is from 1447,^[8] and figurative uses from about 1400.^[8] The verb, “to put in jail”, is from 1604 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[2][9] about 1600 in Etymonline,^[4] and 1622 in the OED.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – a prison.^[8]
• c. 1400 – figuratively, a confinement.^[8]
• 1447 – in jail.^[8]
• 1604 – verb, to imprison.^[2][9]
• 1674 – the spelling jail.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A place for confining people held in lawful custody; a prison.
2. Detention in a jail: sentenced to ten days in jail.

Verb

1. To detain in custody; to imprison.

Word family

• jailable
• jailless
• jaillike
• jailor
• jailbait
• jailbird
• jailbreak
• jailer

Related words

• gaol
• cage
• cave

Usage notes

Gaol is the old-fashioned British spelling of the same word.^[7][4]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster