bridewells

noun

plural of bridewell
as in penitentiaries
a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody the citadel was later converted into a bridewell to house the city's growing criminal population

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for bridewells
  1. penitentiaries
  2. jails
  3. prisons
  4. big houses
Noun
  • Mexico has 276 prisons, including 14 federal penitentiaries and 249 state prisons.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 8 Oct. 2026
  • Hodge says he was abused in multiple federal penitentiaries, but was frequently blocked from filing complaints about it.
    — Christie Thompson, NPR, 13 July 2026
Definition of penitentiaries
Noun
  • The $1 million would come from the same pool of mostly property-tax dollars that fund police, jails, parks and transit.
    — Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald, 20 Oct. 2026
  • And the administration persuaded more and more local police and jails to carry out the president’s mass deportation campaign, sweeping still more immigrants into custody.
    — Melissa Sanchez, ProPublica, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of jails
Noun
  • The Israeli Supreme Court earlier this year ordered the government to resume sharing such lists and allowing the ICRC to visit detainees in Israeli prisons to assess their conditions.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 25 Oct. 2026
  • Flávio has promised to designate major criminal factions as terrorist groups, expand prisons and lower the age of criminal responsibility.
    — Alessandra Freitas, CNN Money, 25 Oct. 2026
Definition of prisons
Noun
  • Boomers stayed in the workforce longer than expected, retired later, and held on to big houses as starter homes disappeared beneath them.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 9 June 2026
  • However, a lot of big houses have been built on smallish lots.
    — Richard Dahlberg, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Mar. 2026
Definition of big houses
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

bridewell
bridewells
bridge
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Cite this Entry

“Bridewells.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bridewells. Accessed 28 Oct. 2026.

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