Definition of jailbirdnext
as in prisoner
a person convicted as a criminal and serving a prison sentence had spent most of his sorry life as a jailbird in hoosegows across the South

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of jailbird But these jailbirds aren’t using their own fingers to fire off missives or create clones. Andrew Zucker, HollywoodReporter, 13 Feb. 2026 And these seven crooked cops are just the tip of the MSP jailbird iceberg. Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 17 Jan. 2026 At no point has the jailbird shown contrition for her crimes. Krista Kafer, Denver Post, 1 Dec. 2025 Her jumpsuit is a couture twist on the cartoonish striped getup of a jailbird. Jemal Polson, CNN Money, 8 May 2025 Becomes a jailbird at a high-security zoo after he’s caught, with the newest Wallace & Gromit film, Vengeance Most Fowl, finding Feathers, all these years later, hell-bent on getting even with the duo who locked him up. Devon Ivie, Vulture, 6 Jan. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for jailbird
Noun
  • Detainees have very little access to due process — prisoners are often judged in mass trials, and lawyers regularly lose track of their clients.
    CBS News, CBS News, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Even a state prisoner on a hunger strike has more rights to make medical decisions.
    CNN Money, CNN Money, 16 Mar. 2026
Noun
  • Williams is being held in the Jackson County Detention Center, according to the jail’s inmate listing.
    Caroline Zimmerman, Kansas City Star, 25 Mar. 2026
  • An inmate’s seemingly clever plan to escape jail via the visitation room ceiling – after meeting with his attorney – proved to be botched from get-go, according to investigators in North Carolina.
    Mark Price, Charlotte Observer, 24 Mar. 2026
Noun
  • Several times when prosecutors played video from the 2024 shooting in Far Rockaway, his widow Stephanie Diller stepped out of the courtroom, sparing herself the grisly and gruesome details of how her husband and father of her 3-year-old boy died trying to disarm an ex-convict on a busy street.
    Sheetal Banchariya, New York Daily News, 11 Mar. 2026
  • Fischbach plays one of the survivors, a convict deemed expendable and thus dispatched to explore an ocean of blood in a rickety submarine.
    Alex Barasch, New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2026
Noun
  • Consider both carefully, then, before getting started, and explore the pros and cons of splitting your funds between both to best determine your next step.
    Matt Richardson, CBS News, 24 Mar. 2026
  • This focuses the debate not on the pros and cons of string theory but on the reasonableness of the assumptions.
    Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 23 Mar. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Jailbird.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/jailbird. Accessed 25 Mar. 2026.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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