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
-
North Little Rock police officer Tommy Norman, whose social media presence attracted millions of followers before his Saturday arrest on a domestic battery count, was released from jail Monday morning after posting a $350 bond, court records showed.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
15 Sep. 2025
-
Tahoe is obviously getting more aggressive with icon-shape enforcement, up to and including automatically manipulating them and sentencing them to icon jail.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
15 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Scott was convicted of murder and sent to prison.—
Tony Saavedra,
Oc Register,
17 Sep. 2025
-
Barr was attorney general when Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in 2019, a death that was later deemed a suicide.—
Lauren Green,
The Washington Examiner,
17 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Arcángela and Serafina remain in the women’s penitentiary, continuing to operate illicit businesses and accumulating wealth, but without hope of freedom.—
Isabella Wandermurem,
Time,
10 Sep. 2025
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Prisoners look out of their cell at maximum security penitentiary CECOT (Center for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism) on April 4 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.—
Dan Gooding,
MSNBC Newsweek,
9 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pokey.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pokey. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.
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