PRISON, noun priz'n. [Latin 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. Ecclesiastes 4:14.

4. The cave where David was confined. Psalms 142:7.

5. A state of spiritual bondage. Isaiah 42:7.

PRIS'ON, verb transitive To shut up in a prison; to confine; to restrain from liberty.

1. To confine in any manner.

2. To captivate; to enchain.

[This word is proper, but imprison is more commonly used.]