Word of the Day

: August 3, 2023

incarcerate

verb in-KAHR-suh-rayt

What It Means

To incarcerate someone is to put them in prison or, figuratively, to subject them to confinement, as in “people incarcerated in their obsessions.”

// Because the accused man did not present a serious threat to society, many questioned the judge’s order that he remain incarcerated while awaiting trial.

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incarcerate in Context

“[Attorney] Ray Taseff points to ‘the inhumanity of taking people off the streets who are not committing a crime but are merely asking for help and incarcerating them as a means of social control.’ Instead of trying to ostracize people experiencing homelessness, cities should offer resources to help them break the cycle of poverty, get back on their feet and find long-term housing.” — Katherine Murray et al., The Miami Herald, 13 June 2023

Did You Know?

Just as English is full of nouns referring to places where prisoners are confined, from the familiar (jail and prison) to the obscure (calaboose and bridewell), so we have multiple verbs for the action of putting people behind bars. Some words can be used as both nouns and verbs, if in slightly different forms: one can be jailed in a jail, imprisoned in a prison, locked up in a lockup, or even jugged in a jug. Incarcerate does not have such a noun equivalent in English—incarceration refers to the state of confinement rather than a physical structure—but it comes ultimately from the Latin noun carcer, meaning “prison.” Incarcerate is also on the formal end of the spectrum when it comes to words related to the law and criminal justice, meaning you are more likely to read or hear about someone incarcerated in a penitentiary or detention center than in the pokey or hoosegow.