Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun a British reform school for youths between 16 and 22.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun historical Any of the
prisons set up inBritain fordelinquent boys from 1895 to 1983. - noun UK, Ireland Any institution which provides education to young offenders.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun formerly a British reform school for youths considered too young to send to prison
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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We always had bad lads, and a few bad girls, we used to put them in borstal for a short sharp shock.
Youth Crime « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008
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I had to look up "borstal" -- I learned a new word.
HH Com 332 Miss Snark 2006
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This format sees a brave/mad teacher volunteering to live with their most difficult pupil for a week in a bid to save them from borstal.
Tonight's TV highlights Will Hodgkinson 2010
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For someone who spent his teens in borstal, and a couple of weeks in the 1980s in Pentonville prison for smashing up a bar in Soho, Allen is now an abstemious sort of hellraiser.
Keith Allen: 'I hardly ever drink – and I make my own pesto' 2011
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It acts more like a housemaster in a progressive borstal.
Archive 2008-02-01 2008
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At the centre is the 17-year-old apprentice welder Del, who disrupts the monotony of life with petty theft and fighting and hero-worships the eponymous borstal fugitive (Sam Shepherd).
Bronco Bullfrog 2010
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I was in the borstal system as a youngster – breaking and entry.
This much I know: Andy McNab Mark Townsend 2010
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The alliterative reference to “borstal”, a home for youthful criminal offenders in England, undercuts your credibility.
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When he was in borstal, she would travel miles, without a car, to see him.
Christina Patterson: Interview with Benjaman Zephaniah: "I'm Just a Normal Bloke Who Writes Poems" 2009
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And the streets, perhaps inevitably, led to petty, and then not-so-petty crime, borstal and then jail.
Christina Patterson: Interview with Benjaman Zephaniah: "I'm Just a Normal Bloke Who Writes Poems" 2009
john commented on the word borstal
"You'll see it often, before you go to Borstal. Sea-pie today, see fugh-all tommorrow."
- Borstal Boy, Brendan Behan
February 19, 2007