Imprisonment

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A confinement in a place, especially a prison or a jail, especially as punishment for a crime. countable, uncountable

    "His sinews woxen weake and raw / Through long emprisonment and hard constraint."

  2. 2
    the act of confining someone in a prison (or as if in a prison) wordnet
  3. 3
    putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment wordnet
  4. 4
    the state of being imprisoned wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
captivityincarcerationincarcerationbeleaguermentbesetmentblockade

Example

More examples

"Such an offence is punished by a fine and/or imprisonment."

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman emprisonement, from Old French emprisonnement. See imprison + -ment.

Related phrases

false imprisonmentimprisonment warrantlife imprisonment

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.