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The person or persons who procure the release of a prisoner from the custody of the officer, or from imprisonment, by becoming surely for his appearance in court. The bail must be real, substantial bondsmen. Blackstone. A. and B. were bail to the arrest in a suit at law. Kent.

A bond or obligation given by a prisoner and his surety, to insure the prisoner's appearance in court, at the return of the writ.

A prison or court of justice; -- used in certain proper names; as, the Old Bailey in London; the New Bailey in Manchester. [Eng.] Oxf. Gloss.

ion of bailing a person accused. Bailment . . . is the saving or delivery of a man out of prison before he hath satisfied the law. Dalton.

The place in court where prisoners are stationed for arraignment, trial, or sentence.

A rustic play; -- called also prisoner's base, prison base, or bars. "To run the country base." Shak.

"The Bastille", formerly a castle or fortress in Paris, used as a prison, especially for political offenders; hence, a rhetorical name for a prison.

u thy body bear." Shak. Hence: To behave; to conduct. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison Shak.

bar or bolt of iron with sliding shackles, and a lock at the end, to confine the feet of prisoners or offenders, esp. on board of ships. Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Shak.

, ligature, chain, etc.; to fetter; to make fast; as, to bind grain in bundles; to bind a prisoner.

A Spanish anarchistic society, many of the members of which were imprisoned in 1883.

A dungeon or dark cell in a prison; a military lock-up or guardroom; -- now commonly with allusion to the cell (the Black Hole) in a fort at Calcutta, into which 146 English prisoners were thrust by the nabob Suraja Dowla on the night of June 20, 17656, and in which 123 of the prisoners died before morning from lack of…

A prison; -- originally the name of the old north gate in Oxford, which was used as a prison. [Eng.] Latimer.

An iron to fasten the legs of a prisoner; a shackle; a fetter. [Obs.] Away with him to prison! lay bolts enough upon him. Shak.

The state of being bound; imprisonment; captivity, restraint. "This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds." Acts xxvi.

om the sovereign; -- much used in France before the Revolution as an arbitrary order of imprisonment.

A place of confinement for malefactors Shak. Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage. Lovelace.

Confined in, or as in, a cage; like a cage or prison. "The caged cloister." Shak.

A captive; a prisoner. [Obs.] Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and slave. Holland.

A prison; a jail. [Local, U. S.]