imprisonment

• emprisonment (obsolete)

From Anglo-Norman emprisonement, from Old French emprisonnement. See imprison +‎ -ment.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɹɪzn̩.mənt/

• Audio (US)

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imprisonment (countable and uncountable, plural imprisonments)

1. A confinement in a place, especially a prison or a jail, as punishment for a crime.
   • Spenser

     His sinews waxen weak and raw / Through long imprisonment and hard constraint.

   • Blackstone

     Every confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison, or in a private house, or even by forcibly detaining one in the public streets.

   • Sir Walter Raleigh

     Oh, by what plots, by what forswearings, betrayings, oppressions, imprisonments, tortures, poisonings, and under what reasons of state and politic subtilty, have these forenamed kings […] pulled the vengeance of God upon themselves […]

• incarceration
• jaildom