Search the Dictionary

Illustration by comprison; simile. [Obs.] Rhymes full of protest, of oath, and big compare. Shak. Beyond compare. See Beyond comparison, under Comparison.

A celebrated prison, attached to the Palais de Justice in Paris.

Apartment; place of restraint; prison. [Obs.] Confines, wards, and dungeons. Shak. The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine. Shak.

Restraint within limits; imprisonment; any restraint of liberty; seclusion. The mind hates restraint, and is apt to fancy itself under confinement when the sight is pent up. Addison.

hat which compels to, or restrains from, action; compulsion; restraint; necessity. Long imprisonment and hard constraint. Spenser. Not by constraint, but bDryden.

The system of employing convicts by selling their labor (to be performed inside the prison) at a fixed price per day to contractors who are allowed to have agents in the prison to superintend the work.

ed their assemblies, . . . and to them preached Conversion and repentance, as to souls In prison under judgments imminent. Milton.

To furnish or fit with cork; to raise on cork. Tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace. Bp. Hall.

he help of a jury, into the cause of any violent, sudden or mysterious death, or death in prison, usually on sight of the body and at the place where the death occurred. [In England formerly also written and pronounced crowner.]

ishment applied to the body of the offender, including the death penalty, whipping, and imprisonment.

A prison; either of two prisons formerly in London. Anne Aysavugh . . . imprisoned in the Counter. Fuller.

Same as Prison base.

A system of prison discipline employing for consecutive periods cellular confinement, associated imprisonment under the mark system, restraint intermediate between imprisonment and freedom, and liberation on ticket of leave.

the removal of disease or evil; that which heals; a remedy; a restorative. Cold, hunger, prisons, ills without a cure. Dryden. The proper cure of such prejudices. Bp. Hurd.

tate of being guarded and watched to prevent escape; restraint of liberty; confinement; imprisonment. What pease will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe, And stripes and arbitrary punishment Milton.

Robynson (More's Utopia). -- Dead line (Mil.), a line drawn within or around a military prison, to cross which involves for a prisoner the penalty of being instantly shot. -- Dead load (Civil Engin.), a constant, motionless load, as the weight of a structure, in distinction from a moving load, as a train of cars, or…

by despondence; given to despondence; low-spirited; as, a despondent manner; a despondent prisoner. -- De*spond"ent*ly, adv.

A writ authorizing the keeper of a prison to continue to keep a person in custody.

A rule of diet; a fixed allowance of food, as in workhouse, prison, etc.

To release legally from confinement; to set at liberty; as, to discharge a prisoner.