Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Slang A jail.
Wiktionary
- n. US, slang A jail.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. U. S. western slang a jail.
WordNet 3.0
- n. slang for a jail
Etymologies
- From Latin American Spanish juzgao, variant of standard Spanish juzgado. Alteration of pronunciation and spelling by law of Hobson-Jobson (Wiktionary)
- Spanish juzgado, tribunal, courtroom, from past participle of juzgar, to judge, from Latin iūdicāre, from iūdex, iūdic-, judge; see judge. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Watching a bunch of them get carted off to the hoosegow is the best “reconciliation” I can think of. henry Says:”
Matthew Yglesias » Ricks Calls for Truth and Reconciliation Commission
“hoosegow" by some people called "the Dark Riders," and their boss is transporting him to a mysterious installation.”
“Do you love your hobby enough to spend a night in the hoosegow for it?”
“If someone threatens, harasses or assaults you there are legal remedies, some of which can cost the perpetrators a hefty price or time in the hoosegow.”
The Huffington Post: Chuck Thies: Bicycling and Equal Protection
“The Raj is charged with enough counts of insider trading to spend 20 years in the hoosegow.”
The Huffington Post: Les Leopold: Is Corruption on Wall Street All in the Eyes of the Beholder?
“After more than a decade of failure or renegade moonlighting (including a spell as a boxer), Rourke re-enters that well-lit hoosegow, Hollywood.”
“Off Ned goes to the hoosegow, where he becomes a popular prisoner and gets released early, then meanders back to the organic farm he shared with his girlfriend, the loathsome Janet a great Kathryn Hahn, on the assumption that life, as he knew it, will resume.”
The Wall Street Journal: 'Idiot Brother': Silly, Satirical and Smart
“And a newspaper report - New York Times - detailed a meeting we wish we'd been invited to, in which MTV suits regaled themselves with speculation as to which of them could wind up in the hoosegow if future episodes aired as delivered to MTV by the producers -- which is sure to boost MTV's coveted 12-24 year old guy numbers by - oh wait, 12-24-year-old guys don't read newspapers.”
The Washington Post: H&R Block shocked to learn its ad ran in MTV's sexy teen series "Skins"
“Last Thursday's most recent episode, in which poor Snooki finally got released from the hoosegow into which she'd been tossed on a disorderly conduct rap after getting hammered in public, clocked nearly 9 million viewers.”
The Washington Post: Creator bares all to try to save MTV's 'Skins': It's 'intensely moral'
“Soon, no doubt, judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, will be unwigged (or whatever happens to corrupt judges) and find themselves in the hoosegow.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hoosegow’.
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EN - Old Western Slang
a hog-killin' time, a lick and a promise, according to Hoyle, ace-high, all down but nine, arbuckle's, at sea, back down, balled up, bang-up, bazoo, bear sign and 212 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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Zamboni Palin
My imaginary lexicon for future megastar and visionary Zamboni Palin.
strewth, curple, speshly, ugly tree, whupping, nar'n, swain, sneezeweed, sciencey, snarleyyow, jackpudding, squanch and 304 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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snarkout's Words
agenbite, scandent, vulpine, ratel, corvid, magpie, meline, musteline, ecdysiast, waxwing, abecedarian, guillotine and 111 more...
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Words used by wordnik but not covered
faveword A foreshortened version of "favorite word"
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wreckingball's Words
reprehensible, problematize, crepuscular, deleterious, pestilent, strumpet, draggletail, interrobang, meretricious, systematize, schadenfreude, capricious and 443 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, H
hurlyburly, hurtle, hodgepodge, heartwood, hatch, halo, hooptedoodle, hacienda, hairpin, heyday, hardscrabble, hopper and 208 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
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prison
politics, kite, rape, hoosegow, klink, real world, books, hooch
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Mélange
doggerel, odsbodkins, platitudinous, ennui, strappleberry, stygian, inchoate, incipient, deleterious, gnarled, troglodyte, interlocutor and 96 more...
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Theophilus North
Words from the novel by Thornton Wilder.
Theophilus, bicycle, Newport, cully, Persis, Hard-hearted Hannah, lazaret, jalopy, Gulliver, tennis, typewrite, breathings and 290 more...
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envelopingshadow's Words
denouement, kitsch, acrimonious, macabre, anachronism, atavism, ennui, parse, lugubrious, holism, brusque, commiserate and 164 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hoosegow.

missanthropist Also slang for public rest room, or outhouse :D !
c. 1930's Jul 16, 2008