imprison

play

verb im·pris·on \ im-ˈpri-zᵊn \

Definition of imprison

transitive verb

:to put in or as if in prison :confine

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imprisonment

play \im-ˈpri-zᵊn-mənt\ noun

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See imprison defined for kids

Examples of imprison in a Sentence

He was imprisoned for murder.
He has threatened to imprison his political opponents.

Recent Examples of imprison from the Web

And in 1849, after imprisoning Jindan, the British forced Duleep to sign a legal document amending the Treaty of Lahore, that required Duleep to give away the Koh-i-Noor and all claim to sovereignty.

— lorraine boissoneault, Smithsonian, "The True Story of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond—And Why the British Won’t Give It Back," 30 Aug. 2017
Kristy Allen, a mother from Decatur imprisoned after developing an addiction to pain pills, sent her children to live with their grandmother.

— amy yurkanin, AL.com, "Poor, rural and addicted: Drugs drive surge in white women in prison," 24 Aug. 2017
That same year, in the juvenile incarceration system, almost 50,000 kids are imprisoned.

— chicagotribune.com, "How not to handle the opioid crisis," 22 Aug. 2017
But none of them have strongly condemned the Chinese Communist regime, which imprisoned a Nobel laureate who should never have been jailed in the first place.

— jianli yang, National Review, "Liu Xiaobo’s Stern Warning," 15 Aug. 2017
Yet in 1943, the same year it was released, the U.S. federal government kept more than 100,000 Americans imprisoned solely for the crime of being Japanese.

— robinson meyer, The Atlantic, "Why an Anti-Fascist Short Film Is Going Viral," 13 Aug. 2017
Graziani was never prosecuted for crimes in Africa, though he was convicted for collaboration with the Nazis and briefly imprisoned.

— The Economist, "Italy and the Addis Ababa massacre," 20 July 2017
Charter 08 was the last straw, and Liu was imprisoned in December of that year.

— the editors, National Review, "Liu Xiaobo, Leader of China, R.I.P.," 13 July 2017
Kim, who has imprisoned tens of thousands in concentration camps and has held off economic development in order to pursue nuclear weapons and missile programs, has demonstrated a lack of concern for the North Korean people.

— kyle mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "How Two Small, Non-Nuclear Missiles Could Keep Kim Jong Un at Bay," 5 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'imprison.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.