Etymologically
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jail

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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
  • 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