Imprisonment

How to spell imprisonment

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce imprisonment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does imprisonment mean?

1. nounThe state of being confined in prison, or the act of putting someone there.

Imprisonment in a sentence

• The fraud conviction carried a sentence of five years' imprisonment.

• The campaign group protested against the wrongful imprisonment of the activists.

Where does imprisonment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word builds on 'prison', which came into English through Old French 'prison' and traces back to the Latin 'prehensio', meaning 'a seizing' or 'taking hold', from the verb 'prehendere', 'to seize or grasp'. The sense slid naturally from the act of seizing a person to the place where seized people were kept. English took the verb 'imprison' from Old French 'emprisoner', where the prefix 'em-' (a form of 'in-') simply meant 'to put into', so to imprison was literally 'to put into prison'. The noun 'imprisonment' was then formed in English in the 1300s by adding the French-derived suffix '-ment', which turns a verb into the name of its state or result. A useful spelling reminder is that the word keeps the whole word 'prison' intact in its middle, so it is im + prison + ment, with the s sounding like a z but still written s.

How the word is built

• im- (in, into)
• prison (place of confinement)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or act)