Word.ws English Dictionary

carceral

Syllables: car·cer·al/ˈkɑːsəɹəl/US/ˈkɑɹsəɹəl/

carceral adjective: of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison.

Adjective

carceral (not comparable)

  1. (formal, literary) Of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison.
    • [O]n his showing signs of penitence, through favour they were contented that he should be released from his carceral endurance, in case he would put in sufficient surety in the king's chancery, and swear that he would never hold or favour any such opinions hereafter. And so, taking an oath of him...1855, John Foxe, “Book VI. Pertaining to the Last Three Hundred Years from the Loosing Out of Satan.”, in The Church Historians of England. Reformation Period. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe....
    • This moon-calf of the imagination binds your reason, sir, in carceral chains.[1861?], Bracebridge Hemyng, “Coaches, Whales, and Wings”, in The Dark Cloud with the Silver Lining, London: James Blackwood, […], →OCLC, page 32

carceral meaning in Tamil and Arabic

carceral in Tamil

சிறை‌ தொடர்பான

carceral in Arabic

of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison
سِجْنِيّ sijniyy

Examples of carceral in a sentence

  • Neoliberal penality and its earlier iterations have fertilized the carceral sphere.2011, Bernard E. Harcourt, “The Paris Marais and the Chicago Board of Trade”, in The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of...
  • It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.2016, Sonia Sotomayor, “Utah v. Strieff”, in U.S. Reports, volume 579, Washington, D.C.:
  • Whereas rates of COVID-19 vary nationwide, our results add to a growing body of literature epmhasizing high COVID-19 rates in carceral settings and the importance of testing and decarceration.2020 August 21, Jiménez, M. C. et al., “Epidemiology of COVID-19 among incarcerated individuals and staff in Massachusetts jails and...

Origin of carceral

From Late Latin carcerālis (“carceral”), from Latin carcer (“jail, prison”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn, in the sense of an enclosure”)) + -ālis (suffix forming relational adjectives).

Words formed from carceral

Questions about carceral

What does carceral mean?
Carceral means of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison.
What is carceral in Tamil?
Carceral in Tamil is சிறை‌ தொடர்பான. See Carceral meaning in Tamil.
How do you use carceral in a sentence?
Neoliberal penality and its earlier iterations have fertilized the carceral sphere.
What part of speech is carceral?
Carceral is an adjective.
How do you pronounce carceral?
Carceral is pronounced /ˈkɑːsəɹəl/ (UK).

Words near carceral in the dictionary

  1. carceag
  2. carcel
  3. Carcel lamp
  4. Carcel lamps
  5. carcels
  6. carceral
  7. carcerality
  8. carcerally
  9. carcerand
  10. carcerands
  11. carcerate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carceral (page history and authors); carceral (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carceral.wav.

Cite this entry: “carceral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carceral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.