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Gaol   Listen
noun
Gaol  n.  (Preferably, and in the United States usually, written jail)  A place of confinement, especially for minor offenses or provisional imprisonment; a jail.
Commission of general gaol delivery, an authority conferred upon judges and others included in it, for trying and delivering every prisoner in jail when the judges, upon their circuit, arrive at the place for holding court, and for discharging any whom the grand jury fail to indict. (Eng.)
Gaol delivery. (Law) See Jail delivery, under Jail.



Jail  n.  (Written also gaol)  A kind of prison; a building for the confinement of persons held in lawful custody, especially for minor offenses or with reference to some future judicial proceeding. "This jail I count the house of liberty."
Jail delivery, the release of prisoners from jail, either legally or by violence.
Jail delivery commission. See under Gaol.
Jail fever (Med.), typhus fever, or a disease resembling it, generated in jails and other places crowded with people; called also hospital fever, and ship fever.
Jail liberties, or Jail limits, a space or district around a jail within which an imprisoned debtor was, on certain conditions, allowed to go at large.
Jail lock, a peculiar form of padlock; called also Scandinavian lock.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gaol" Quotes from Famous Books



... Protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the peer, whose footman's instep he measures, is able to keep his chaplain from a gaol. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... round-head—I saw him pelt the bishops when they appeared at the bar of the Lords, and join in a clamorous petition to behead Lord Strafford. Give him a hint of this, and make him bleed. Tell him we will inform Sir Richard Greenvil of his behaviour; and talk of Launceston gaol." ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... the other, "I give you your choice. I will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he was ready, as in past days, to listen to tales of wrong from the poorest, and to try to set them right. He had all the whips and instruments of torture that Egyptian rulers had used piled up outside the Palace and burned. In the gaol he found two hundred men, women, and children lying in chains and in the most dismal plight. Some were innocent, many were prisoners of war. Of many their gaolers could give no reason for their being there. One woman had been imprisoned for fifteen years for a crime committed when ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... not forget to mention the Gaol, the only one in the Island. It is unlike any other I ever heard of, as it very rarely has an inmate! Honesty amongst the people themselves is wonderful, and murder ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie


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