KJV Dictionary Definition: prison

prison

PRISON, n. priz'n. L. prendo.

1. In a general sense, any place of confinement or involuntary restraint; but appropriately, a public building for the confinement or safe custody of debtors and criminals committed by process of law; a jail. Originally, a prison, as Lord Coke observes, was only a place of safe custody; but it is now employed as a place of punishment. We have state-prisons, for the confinement of criminals by way of punishment.

2. Any place of confinement or restraint.

The tyrant Aeolus,

With power imperial curbs the struggling winds,

And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.

3. In Scripture, a low, obscure, afflicted condition. Eccles.4.

4. The cave where David was confined. Ps.142.

5. A state of spiritual bondage. Is.42.

prisoned

PRIS'ONED, pp. Imprisoned; confined; restrained.

prisoner

PRIS'ONER, n. One who is confined in a prison by legal arrest or warrant.

1. A person under arrest or in custody of the sheriff, whether in prison or not; as a prisoner at the bar of a court.

2. A captive; one taken by an enemy in war.

3. One whose liberty is restrained, as a bird in a cage.

prisoning

PRIS'ONING, ppr. Confining; imprisoning.

prisonment

PRIS'ONMENT, n. Confinement in a prison; imprisonment.

The latter is commonly used.

Definitions from Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
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