imprisonment
noun
Simple meaning
Putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihmprizuhnmuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪmpˈɹɪzənmənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment
A confinement in a place, especially a prison or a jail, especially as punishment for a crime.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment
Used this way, imprisonment is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use imprisonment
- “The jury decided the punishment of imprisonment was necessary for the crime.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.