Calaboose
//ˌkæləˈbuːs// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A prison or jail/gaol. Australia, US, dialectal
"The slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A citizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was burned to death in the calaboose?'"
Example
More examples"The slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A citizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was burned to death in the calaboose?'"
Etymology
From Cajun French calabousse, from Spanish calabozo. Doublet of calabozo.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.