Meaning of calaboose | Babel Free

Definitions

A prison or jail/gaol.

Australia, US, dialectal

Examples

“The slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A citizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was burned to death in the calaboose?'”

“Bogator: (Still unbelieving) And you turned the calaboose over?”

“[…] he had but recently come out of Calaboose, where he had been serving a term for debt […]”

“Thereupon the Administrator in Rabaul almost outdid himself in defending corporal punishment […] and demanded drastic alternative punishments, for the "calaboose" (Kalabus: Tok Pisin for prison) "is the native's paradise."”

“The first calaboose or city jail used by the officers of the law was located on Cumberland Street, just below the vacant lot adjacent to the Star Steam Laundry.”

“In his opinion it would seem that certain usages of colloquial English in Australia and New Zealand in the early 1800s could have been selected as conventional usages in the developing contact jargon. Many of these usages are still part of colloquial speech today in both of these countries, for example: fella for 'one', […] no good, orright, calaboose, […]”

CEFR level