Primary
''gaol'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔
gaol - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
gaol (countable and uncountable, plural gaols)
- (UK) Dated spelling of jail.
- ✤ There’s every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that’s unique. The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn’t that very rare second version of Maria Marten’s Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning – he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way —1
- ✤ There was a simple reason for Sirius’complete absence from Harry’s life until then – Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard gaol guarded by creatures called Dementors, […]2
Verb
gaol (third-person singular simple present gaols, present participle gaoling, simple past and past participle gaoled)
- (UK) Dated spelling of jail.
Etymology
From Middle English gayole, gaiol, gaylle, gaille, gayle, gaile, via Old French gaiole, gayolle, gaole, from Medieval Latin gabiola, for Late Latin caveola, a diminutive of Latin cavea (“cavity, coop, cage”). See also cage.
Pronunciation
- IPA: /d͡ʒeɪl/
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
- Rhymes: -eɪl
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 42: ↩
2000 July 8, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], “The Scar”, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter; 4), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 26: ↩
Secondary
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