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It is not only important, but, in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an American Dictionary of the English language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language. |
JAIL, n. A prison; a building or place for the confinement of persons arrested for debt or for crime, and held in the custody of the sheriff.
A kind of prison; a building for the confinement
of persons held in lawful custody, especially for minor offenses or
with reference to some future judicial proceeding.
[Written
also gaol.]
This jail I count the house of liberty. Milton. Jail bird, a prisoner; one who has been confined in prison. [Slang] -- Jail delivery, the release of prisoners from jail, either legally or by violence. -- Jail delivery commission. See under Gaol. -- Jail fever (Med.), typhus fever, or a disease resembling it, generated in jails and other places crowded with people; -- called also hospital fever, and ship fever. -- Jail liberties, or Jail limits, a space or district around a jail within which an imprisoned debtor was, on certain conditions, allowed to go at large. Abbott. -- Jail lock, a peculiar form of padlock; -- called also Scandinavian lock. To imprison.
[R.] T. Adams (1614).
[Bolts] that jail you from free life. Tennyson. | ||||||||