inmate
noun
Simple meaning
A person confined to an institution such as a prison or hospital.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
inmaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɪnmeɪt
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
A person serving a sentence in a jail or prison
A person confined to an institution such as a prison (as a convict) or hospital (as a patient).
A person who shares a residence (such as a hotel guest, a lodger, or a student living on campus), or other place.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person confined to an institution such as a prison (as a convict) or hospital (as a patient).
Used this way, inmate is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- 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 inmate
- “An inmate in the prison library was quietly reading a book.”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.