gaol

1. 1.

   lock up or confine, in or as in a jail

   “The suspects were imprisoned without trial”

   “the murderer was incarcerated for the rest of his life”

   Synonymsimprisonincarceratelagimmureput behind barsjailjugput awayremand

   Broaderconfine

   law

Other forms of gaol

plural

gaols·

past tense

gaoled·

present participle

gaoling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about gaol

What does gaol mean?

gaol means "a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in gaol?

gaol has 1 syllable: gaol.

What is another word for gaol?

Close synonyms include jail, jailhouse, clink, slammer, poky. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is gaol a common word?

gaol is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.