Prison

How to spell prison

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prison

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prison mean?

1. nounA building where people convicted of crimes, or awaiting trial, are kept in confinement.

Prison in a sentence

• The judge sentenced him to five years in prison.

• Visitors must leave their phones at the prison entrance.

Where does prison come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Prison reaches English from the Latin noun prensio, a shortened form of prehensio, meaning 'a seizing' or 'an act of laying hold of someone'. That noun came from the verb prehendere, 'to grasp or capture', so the earliest idea behind the word is the moment of arrest rather than the building itself. The sense drifted naturally from the capture to the place where captured people were kept. The word travelled into English in the 1100s through Old French prison, and Middle English writers used spellings like prisun before it settled. The same prehendere root quietly survives in words such as 'comprehend', 'apprehend', and 'prehensile', which all share the literal notion of grasping. Because the spelling keeps a single 's' that is pronounced like a 'z', writers occasionally hesitate over it.

How the word is built

• pris- (from Latin prehendere/prensio: a seizing, capture)
• -on (noun suffix via Old French)