borstal
borstal noun: a way up a hill in the South Downs.
Noun
borstal (plural borstals)
- A way up a hill in the South Downs.
- Any of the prisons set up in Britain for delinquent boys from 1895 to 1983.
- Synonyms:
- reformatory
- Any institution which provides education to young offenders.
- You have juvenile courts. Do you have borstal institutions for juveniles?2004, August 3, Speaker of the Kenyan National Assembly, Kenya National Assembly Official Record, Hansard, page 3126
- Seven years ago, I was sent to borstal. Slithering around in the societal sludge, I was forced to admit I'd made a huge mistake – committing robbery.2011 November 7, Paris Lees, “My Transsexual Summer: a new view of gender”, in The Guardian
Proper noun capitalized: Borstal
Borstal
borstal meaning in Tamil
borstal in Tamil
- குன்றின்மேல் பாதை
Synonyms of borstal
Forms of borstal
| plural | borstals |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bostal |
Origin of borstal
Inherited from Middle English *borstile, *borghstile, from Old English beorh (“a hill”) + stigel (“a stile”). The institutions are named after Borstal Prison in Borstal, Rochester, Kent, England.
Words formed from borstal
Questions about borstal
- What does borstal mean?
- Borstal means a way up a hill in the South Downs.
- What is borstal in Tamil?
- Borstal in Tamil is குன்றின்மேல் பாதை. See Borstal meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is borstal?
- Borstal can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of borstal?
- The plural of borstal is borstals.
Words near borstal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: borstal (page history and authors); Borstal (page history and authors); Borstal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “borstal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/borstal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.