incarcerateverb [ T ]
uk/ɪnˈkɑː.sər.eɪt/us/ɪnˈkɑːr.sə.reɪt/formal to put or keep someone in prison or in a place used as a prison:
Thousands of dissidents have been interrogated or incarcerated.
to keep someone in a closed place and prevent them from leaving it:
We were incarcerated in that broken elevator for four hours.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Putting people in prison
- at His/Her Majesty's pleasure idiom
- bang
- bang sb up
- bar
- behind bars idiom
- bird
- hold
- immured
- imprison
- internment
- jail
- lag
- lock
- pen
- restraint
- rot
- rot in jail, prison, etc. idiom
- send
- send sb down
- serve
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incarceration
noun [ U ] uk/ɪnˌkɑː.sərˈeɪ.ʃən/us/ɪnˌkɑːr.səˈreɪ.ʃən/
We’re spending billions of dollars each year on incarceration.