incarceration
noun
in·car·cer·a·tion
(ˌ)in-ˌkär-sə-ˈrā-shən 
plural incarcerations
: confinement in a jail or prison : the act of imprisoning someone or the state of being imprisoned
Despite the drop in crime in past decades, rates of arrest and incarceration in New York City have not gone down.—
Robin Steinberg
Robin SteinbergTo this day, the Supreme Court has not overruled its infamous Korematsu opinion of 1944, which validated our mass incarceration in deference to national security.—George Takei
George TakeiSynonyms
Examples of incarceration in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Each of the counts against Trump carries a maximum sentence of four years incarceration.
—Graham Kates, CBS News, 15 Apr. 2024
Trump would be a first-time, nonviolent felony offender, but some defendants convicted on the same charges have gotten several months of incarceration in New York.
—Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY, 14 Apr. 2024
His incarceration was widely viewed as long-overdue punishment for the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.
—Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2024
But because Rupp-Jones was sentenced without incarceration, the board was unable to consider her nursing license revoked.
—Nicole Lopez, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Apr. 2024
But about a decade into her incarceration came a series of revelations.
—Kristine Phillips, The Indianapolis Star, 3 Apr. 2024
The film artfully weaves the history of mass incarceration of Black people by the war on weed and the resistance to that war by musicians.
—Andrew Deangelo, Forbes, 30 Mar. 2024
When expanded to include Black Americans -- whose incarceration rate is estimated to be five times higher than whites -- the likelihood of an immigrant being incarcerated is 60% lower than of people born in the United States, according to the study.
—Bill Hutchinson, ABC News, 22 Mar. 2024
During his more than three decades of incarceration, Sherman Wright has seen men who have killed come and go from Kansas prisons, his sister said.
—Luke Nozicka, Kansas City Star, 22 Mar. 2024
Graham Kates, CBS News, 15 Apr. 2024
Trump would be a first-time, nonviolent felony offender, but some defendants convicted on the same charges have gotten several months of incarceration in New York.
—Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY, 14 Apr. 2024
His incarceration was widely viewed as long-overdue punishment for the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.
—Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2024
But because Rupp-Jones was sentenced without incarceration, the board was unable to consider her nursing license revoked.
—Nicole Lopez, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 Apr. 2024
But about a decade into her incarceration came a series of revelations.
—Kristine Phillips, The Indianapolis Star, 3 Apr. 2024
The film artfully weaves the history of mass incarceration of Black people by the war on weed and the resistance to that war by musicians.
—Andrew Deangelo, Forbes, 30 Mar. 2024
When expanded to include Black Americans -- whose incarceration rate is estimated to be five times higher than whites -- the likelihood of an immigrant being incarcerated is 60% lower than of people born in the United States, according to the study.
—Bill Hutchinson, ABC News, 22 Mar. 2024
During his more than three decades of incarceration, Sherman Wright has seen men who have killed come and go from Kansas prisons, his sister said.
—Luke Nozicka, Kansas City Star, 22 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'incarceration.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Incarceration.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incarceration. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
incarceration
noun
in·car·cer·a·tion
in-ˌkär-sə-ˈrā-shən
1
: a confining or state of being confined
2
: abnormal retention or confinement of a body part
specifically
: a constriction of the neck of a hernial sac so that the hernial contents become irreducible
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