as in jail
a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody
joked about the time he passed out on the street and woke up in the pokey
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Recent Examples of pokey
Thirty-three years since its founder began cutting up fabrics in a pokey South London flat, the house of McQueen’s headquarters now inhabit a six-story, 30,000-square-foot building in London’s Clerkenwell.
—
Hayley Maitland, Vogue, 16 Dec. 2024
This pokey lime green plant is a bit of a chameleon, changing colour when stressed by lack of water or bad weather.
—Katy Kelleher, refinery29.com, 29 July 2024
Calvin Klein’s racerback bralette is made from ultra-soft and stretch-infused cotton for optimal breathability, and it’s designed without pokey underwires, too.
—Emily Weaver, Peoplemag, 27 July 2024
Image: Cornell The researchers equipped their prototype robot with two different kinds of texture units: Goosebumps, which form rounded domes when inflated, and spikes, which include rigid little pokey bits.
—IEEE Spectrum, 16 May 2018
See All Example Sentences for pokey
Hayley Maitland, Vogue, 16 Dec. 2024
This pokey lime green plant is a bit of a chameleon, changing colour when stressed by lack of water or bad weather.
—Katy Kelleher, refinery29.com, 29 July 2024
Calvin Klein’s racerback bralette is made from ultra-soft and stretch-infused cotton for optimal breathability, and it’s designed without pokey underwires, too.
—Emily Weaver, Peoplemag, 27 July 2024
Image: Cornell The researchers equipped their prototype robot with two different kinds of texture units: Goosebumps, which form rounded domes when inflated, and spikes, which include rigid little pokey bits.
—IEEE Spectrum, 16 May 2018
See All Example Sentences for pokey
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pokey
Noun
-
The Sacramento Police Department initially arrested Hernandez Santana, before he was released from the jail hours later after posting a $200,000 bail bond.—
Rosalio Ahumada,
Sacbee.com,
7 Oct. 2025
-
Rachel Fyall, associate professor at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, said the cost of not housing people includes emergency room care, jail cells and police on the street.—
Ashley Hiruko,
ProPublica,
6 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
In April 2022 the artist, real name Lontrell Williams, was sentenced to 63 months in prison after pleading guilty to a gun conspiracy charge stemming from an October 2020 confrontation that left a man shot in the buttocks.—
Andre Gee,
Rolling Stone,
7 Oct. 2025
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He was found not guilty in one case and pleaded guilty in another; this past December, he was sentenced to twenty-three months in prison and five years of probation, although he was released from federal prison earlier this year.—
Kelefa Sanneh,
New Yorker,
7 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
Just up the way, the old penitentiary building is famously open for tours and purportedly haunted.—
Idaho Statesman,
Idaho Statesman,
6 Oct. 2025
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He was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:40 p.m. at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.—
Greg Wehner,
FOXNews.com,
26 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pokey.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pokey. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.
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