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A place of confinement; a prison; confinement; custody; guard. They . . . put them in hold unto the next day. Acts. iv. 3. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold Of Bolingbroke. Shak.

A vitiated condition of the body, due to long confinement in a hospital, or the morbid condition of the atmosphere of a hospital.

The act of imprisoning, or the state of being imprisoned; confinement; restraint. His sinews waxen weak and raw Through long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Every confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison, or in a private house, or even by foreibly detaining one in the pu…

Confinement in, or as in, cage. [Obs.] Shelton.

Confinement within narrow limits, -- as of foreign troops, to the interior of a country.

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 delive…

when it is abeam, or between the beam and the quarter. At large. (a) Without restraint or confinement; as, to go at large; to be left at large. (b) Diffusely; fully; in the full extent; as, to discourse on a subject at large. -- Common at large. See under Common, n. -- Electors at large, Representative at large, elec…

Room; space; freedom from confinement or restraint; hence, looseness; laxity; independence. In human actions there are no degrees and precise natural limits described, but a latitude is indulged. Jer. Taylor.

Hence: Any real or imaginary place of restraint or confinement; a prison; as, to put a man in limbo.

ach.) See Fast and loose pulleys, under Fast. -- To let loose, to free from restraint or confinement; to set at liberty.

The state attending, and consequent to, childbirth; confinement.

cage for hawks while mewing; a coop for fattening fowls; hence, any inclosure; a place of confinement or shelter; -- in the latter sense usually in the plural. Full many a fat partrich had he in mewe. Chaucer. Forthcoming from her darksome mew. Spenser. Violets in their secret mews. Wordsworth.

Beyond the limits of concealment, confinement, privacy, constraint, etc., actual of figurative; hence, not in concealment, constraint, etc., in, or into, a state of freedom, openness, disclosure, publicity, etc.; as, the sun shines out; he laughed out, to be out at the elbows; the secret has leaked out, or is out; the…

Confinement of cattle, or other animals, in a public pound.

Specifically, a building for the safe custody or confinement of criminals and others committed by lawful authority. Prison bars, or Prison base. See Base, n., 24. -- Prison breach. (Law) See Note under 3d Escape, n., 4. -- Prison house, a prison. Shak. -- Prison ship (Naut.), a ship fitted up for the confinement of…

To thrust out, as through a narrow orifice or from confinement; to cause to come forth. When . . . Spring protrudes the bursting gems. Thomson.

arliament. -- Reform school, a school established by a state or city government, for the confinement, instruction, and reformation of juvenile offenders, and of young persons of idle, vicious, and vagrant habits. [U. S.]

To let loose again; to set free from restraint, confinement, or servitude; to give liberty to, or to set at liberty; to let go. Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired. Mark xv. 6.

The act of releasing, as from confinement or obligation. Milton.

To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger, or evil; to liberate from actual restraint; to remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil; as, to rescue a prisoner from the enemy; to rescue seamen from destruction. Had I been seized by a hungry lion, I would have been a breakfast to the best, Rather…